Soup #2 for our week: Crock Pot Navy Bean Soup

So here is another one that I’ve posted before, Crock Pot Navy Bean Soup, that we ate this week.  This time though I tried a bag of dried beans rather than the 4 cans of navy beans.

I simply bought a bag of beans and soaked them overnight.  Then used them in the soup with 4 Ro-Tel cans of water (rather than the bean cans as the recipe calls for).  I think it worked just fine and I’m sure we ate fewer chemicals because of it!

I toasted up some leftover Amoroso rolls, served some raw carrots, and meant to also have orange slices….I’m just realizing that I forgot to do the oranges!  (If you are wondering…my girls pick out the ham and sausage in this dish to fill up on but hey- at least they might get a stray bean one of these days and realize it isn’t so bad.)

 

Ham Casserole

So what do you cook on a day when you realize that the pork tenderloin is still in the freezer?  Ham Casserole was our answer tonight!  I told Brad that menu planning does me no good if I fail to take things out of the freezer.  Oh well!

I purchased several ham steaks last month when they were on sale and knew that we would eat them eventually.  If you have more than four people in your family you will want to double the recipe as we had just enough for all of us.

In a 2 qt casserole dish mix:

• 1 can cream of celery soup
• 1 cup milk
• 1 small can of mushrooms, drained
• 2 Tablespoons of chopped onion

Add to the mix:

• 2 cups ham, chopped ( I used one ham steak which was just a bit shy of 2 cups)
• 1 cup elbow macaroni (uncooked)
• white pepper to taste (I used white pepper so that my girls didn’t realize that it was peppered…there was a time they wouldn’t touch it if they saw it in something!)
• (you can also add some pimentos or some chopped red pepper too)

Bake, covered in a 375 degree oven for 50 minutes (or until macaroni is tender)

Uncover and sprinkle with:

• 1/2 c cheese, grated

Return to the oven and allow the cheese to melt.

 

Enjoy—it is an easy one to throw together and at my house it brings smiles all around the table.