FEED YOUR FACE: A FAMOUS BEAN SOUP

Kathi here. Jim really likes to eat at The Buckhorn Exchange. It is one of Denver's historic restaurants, and they have tasty food.

The restaurant publishes its bean soup recipe on its Web site. We always have to eat the bean soup when we go, even though we know it's going to make us feel too full. And it always does.

Now that Fall weather is here, I've been hungry for soup, and we had never made The Buckhorn Exchange Famous Bean Soup before, so thought we'd make that.

We followed the recipe, but added some things we like and made it just a little different. So I guess we made the famous soup, just not so famous.

Their recipe (linke above) says:
1-lb. Great Northern beans
½ cup diced onion
3-oz diced ham
1-oz chicken base
½ tsp Seasoned Salt
1 tsp Liquid Smoke
1 tsp granulated garlic
1 tsp white pepper
½ gallon water
1-oz cornstarch
½ cup water
Place first 9 ingredients in a large pot, cover and place in a 200 degree oven for 8 hours. When
beans are tender, remove from oven, place on stovetop and bring to boil. Mix cornstarch and ½ cup water, add to soup to thicken, and let simmer for 15 minutes.

And we did all that. But we also added:

3/4 cup diced onion (instead of 1/2 cup called for)

3/4 cup diced carrot

3/4 cup diced celery

We also added more ham. I wanted to add a half pound of diced ham, and Jim did put in a little more, but not much. Hmmmmpf!

We placed it all in a cast iron Dutch oven. You could also, I'm sure, make this in a slow cooker.

The house smelled really good while this was cooking, and our tongues were happy when it was done. The beans were tender, the soup had little chunky vegetables and pieces of ham throughout, and the broth was flavorful. It made a good-sized batch, but not so much that we'll have to eat it every day for a week.

And if you ever get to Denver, try to make time in your schedule to eat a meal at The Buckhorn Exchange!