Souper Saturday

Each year, an organization I belong to holds a Souper Saturday event to raise funds. Local restaurants and individuals contribute quarts of soup to be sold on the Saturday before Super Bowl Sunday. My contribution is always 11-bean with ham and Rotel. The soup is already made and in the freezer, ready for delivery the Friday before the event.

I got the recipe for this soup many years ago at an Extension Homemakers meeting. The group decided that instead of each of us buying all eleven types of dried beans, we'd do it as a club project. Each member brought a couple of bags of bean varieties, which we mixed together and divided into freezer bags...one and one half cups per bag (enough for a recipe). That way, each of us took home several bags of beans at a nominal cost.

The club has since disbanded, and now I buy all the beans myself, divide them, and put them in the freezer to use all year long. It's less expensive than buying individual bags off the grocery shelf.

If you'd like to try this, just use a grocery bag, or a plastic tote to mix these varieties of dried beans together:

4 lbs. pinto beans
4 lbs. great northern beans
2 lbs. navy peas
1 lb. lima beans
2 lbs. baby lima beans
1 lb. red beans
1 lb. kidney beans
1 lb. black beans
1 lb. blackeyed peas
1 lb. split green peas
1 lb. lentils

ELEVEN BEAN SOUP

Wash one and a half cups beans, drain, and soak overnight. Drain beans again.
In a large pan, like a Dutch oven, add to the beans:

Two quarts of water
A meaty ham bone, or a ham slice, cut into chunks
One medium chopped onion
Four medium banana peppers, seeded and chopped (optional)
One clove of garlic, or the equivalent of garlic in a jar
The juice of one lemon, or the equivalent of bottled lemon juice
One can of Rotel tomatoes
Seasoning salt (recipe in an earlier blog), or salt and pepper to taste

Simmer until the beans are tender.

Note: the addition of banana peppers is my own personal touch. I add them to many of my recipes, like soups, stews, pinto beans with ham, and Italian sauces. They don't add an overpowering flavor of their own, but seem to just meld the other flavors.