Bean Soup

If you haven't followed my blog, you should know that Jud and I try to make a soup every week. This was our soup for this week.  I had a ham bone left-over from Thanksgiving that I had put in a freezer bag and my brother had given me some deer sausage the last time I visited; this seemed like the perfect soup to make.  This recipe came from my Talk About Good Cookbook that I got 40 years ago when I got married.




Ingredients:
1 can whole tomatoes (I used the large can)
1can tomato sauce or tomato paste
1 large onion (I used 1/2 of a large onion)
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2-3 stalks celery, chopped
ham bone
1 package Great Northern white beans
sausage
salt and pepper to taste (salt in the last 1/2 hour)
Method:
Put all ingredients except sausage in a large pot and fill with water. I used my crock pot. Add black and red pepper to taste. Add salt after it has cooked as the ham may have enough salt. Cook 8 hours in the crock pot on low. In the last hour cut-up the sausage in rounds and fry it in a frying pan to remove grease. I just cut it and put it in the crock pot without frying. Deer sausage doesn't have much fat. 
Note: Mrs. McGinn says she cooks hers 8 hours in the pot. She doesn't say if she puts it on top of the stove or cooks it in a 300 degree oven for 8 hours.