A Day for Cooking!

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you had a fantastic day with family and friends... or if you are like me, that is all coming in the next few days. My Christmas with family will come tomorrow and over the weekend. So what did I do on this Christmas day? Let's see...

• Slept until I woke (without the alarm!) and that was a blessing
• Finished wrapping presents
• Worked on my current novella
• Did a little Internet promo
  
• Made two kinds of fudge--chocolate and white chocolate walnut
• Made bread pudding (wasn't bad! more on that tomorrow, perhaps)
• Made Lima Bean and Ham Soup

It had been a while since I'd made lima beans from scratch... you know, from the dried bean. I knew I had some ham in the freezer left from Thanksgiving and was thinking I had navy beans in the pantry. So on a search I went and realized, hey! I've got baby limas! I have to say, they turned out fantastic. Here is how I made them.

Ingredients

1 16 oz. pkg of dried baby lima beans

Olive oil

@ 2 cups of diced ham or ham pieces

1 lg. onion, chopped

4-5 stalks of celery, chopped

4-5 lg carrots, sliced

2 cups of stock

2-4 cups of water

salt, pepper, thyme and rosemary to taste

Directions

• Pick through the beans, wash and soak them overnight. Drain the beans the next morning.

• In a soup pot, lay down 2-3 T of olive oil in the pan.

• Heat and add ham, onion, celery, carrots and 2 t salt. Saute for a few minutes.

• Add stock and 2 cups of water and bring to a boil.

• Add lima beans, cover with water, add spices to taste, and bring again to a boil. Lower heat and simmer until beans are tender and flavors melded. Great with cornbread
  

Enjoy!