White Beans with Easter Ham Bone

 

Soaking grocery store beans certainly helps but is not totally necessary. Freshly dried beans that you may find at a farmer's market don't have to be soaked at all and still cook quicker. What I do with white beans is boil them for 20-25 minutes first, until the water turns yellow, and then drain them and go from there. Full recipe at the link and post will be updated as I get more into it.

https://thegoldenhornblog.blogspot.com/2020/12/white-beans.html

Just coming to a boil here with some celery and onion tops. I will pick that stuff out too when I drain the beans, then brown the ham, then cook the vegetables, and then add the beans back with some chicken stock/broth. 

Images came out backwards order as usual. Beans and ham bone simmering now. I won't add the actual ham until after an hour of cooking because you don't want to overcook the meat.

At the one hour mark I added some water, all the ham, some seasoning, and removed a chunk of ham still on the ham bone. Pic above is now at the 1:45 point. Cooking time will be a little extended since I didn't soak the beans. Just starting to soften up so total time will probably be 2:30 at least. To get creamy beans the last ten minutes of cooking stir and stir and stir some more. After five or six minutes you will see it start to change if the beans are soft enough.

I added a good bit of water in the last hour (at least a cup) and a little more during the final stir to get the right consistency. Cook time was right at three hours. Made 16 cups. Beans are very good.