Basic Ham and Bean Soup with Fried Bread

Pops and I have running in a lot of chilly, rainy, even icy weather lately. It makes me crave a warm in the belly, good, hearty meal.

Try this one.

Basic Ham and Bean Soup

1 pound dry great Northern beans

8 cups water

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 ham chunk with meat

1 cup chopped carrots

1/2 stalk celery, chopped

1 cup chopped onion

1/2 teaspoon ground pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Rinse the beans,

 In a crock pot over high heat, Add the salt and the beans and ham. 

Add carrots, celery, onion. Season with ground pepper to taste.

Serve with fried bread.

Fried Bread

1 cup unbleached flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon powdered milk

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup water

Vegetable oil for frying

Extra flour to flour your hands

Preparation:

Sift together the flour, salt, powdered milk, and baking powder into a large bowl. Pour the water over the flour mixture all at once and stir the dough with a fork until it starts to form one big clump. 

Flour your hands well. Using your hands, begin to mix the dough, trying to get all the flour into the mixture to form a ball. You want to mix this well, but you do NOT want to knead it. Kneading it will make for a heavy Fry Bread when cooked. The inside of the dough ball should still be sticky after it is formed, while the outside will be well floured.

Cut the dough into four (4) pieces. Using your floured hands, shape, stretch, pat, and form a disk of about 5 to 7 inches in diameter.

In a deep heavy pot, heat the vegetable oil to about 350 degrees F. You can check if you oil is hot enough by either dropping a small piece of dough in the hot oil and seeing if it begins to fry, or by dipping the end of a wooden spoon in and seeing if that bubbles. Your oil should be about 1-inch deep in a large cast-iron skillet or other large heavy pot.