15 Bean Soup

Hey look, I'm back! Again. Hopefully this isn't going to become my standard greeting for these posts; hopefully I'm going to start doing better about posting more frequently. You'd think that with the amount of time I spend in my kitchen I could have a post up nearly every day, but...clearly that hasn't been the case. Yet. I guess part of the problem is that a lot of the time when I'm baking/cooking, I'm in too much of a hurry to take pictures--and, mediocre though my photography skills are, I still like to have at least one photo to accompany these recipes.

But, excuses aside, here (finally) is the recipe for the 15 Bean Soup that I made waaaaay back in the year 2010. I'm pretty sure I made this during my VIA baking spree...and I know that for some [highly intelligent] reason I decided to make this in the middle of the night. [Brilliant, I know.] Actually, the majority of my baking that month occurred in the wee small hours of the morning (accompanied, incidentally, by my Frank Sinatra Pandora station); I didn't sleep much in October.

But I digress; enough of my rambling. Here's the recipe, which was a huge hit with my coworkers (and our milkman, actually). I mostly followed the recipe on the package, but I did add my own little twist to it...

15 Bean Soup

20 oz. package 15 Bean Soup (I used Hurst's)

1 lb. sausage, cooked

15 oz. can stewed or diced tomatoes

1 tsp chili powder

Juice of 1 lemon

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

1 packet VIA Ready-Brew coffee (I used Italian Roast)

1. Soak beans in 2 quarts of water overnight, or at least 8 hours.

2. Drain the water. Add 2 quarts of water and sausage.

3. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 2 1/2 hours.

4. After simmering, add onion, tomatoes, chili powder, lemon, garlic, and VIA Ready-Brew.

5. Simmer for another 30 minutes.

6. Add contents of ham packet (included in the soup package) 1-2 minutes before cooking is completed. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I also made homemade French bread to go with this, which (I think) worked quite nicely.

Enjoy!