New Year's Day Bean Soup

I hope everyone had a very Happy New Year! Did you eat your beans and greens? I am not a huge fan of black eyed peas or cabbage, so we had ham bone soup and a spinach salad. The soup was super easy to make and I had almost everything on hand leftover from the holidays. The only thing I had to buy was a bag of beans and some spinach. This is a great recipe if you are on a budget. The bag of beans as 2.39 (although, I bet you could find it cheaper). Also, I bought a bean soup mix, so that increased the price a little bit. The ham bone came from our Thanksgiving Ham that I had frozen- so as far as I am concerned it was free. The rest of the ingredients were leftovers from Christmas. A few extra carrots, potatoes onions, and stalks of celery may not do much on their own, but when added to soup they feed an army.

You Will Need:
1 bag of soup beans
1 leftover ham bone
carrots, celery, onion- diced
1 tbsp garlic
1 quart chicken broth+ water
2 cups leftover ham
1 cups diced potatoes
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp red pepper
Directions
Follow the directions on the bag for soaking the beans over night.
In a large stock pot, saute the carrots, celery and onion until tender. In the last 30 seconds add the garlic and rinsed beans. Stir well. Add the ham bone, the quart of chicken broth and enough water to cover the beans by at least 2 inches and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce to a simmer and cook for 1 1/2 hours. Remove the bone, pick any leftover ham, discard the bone, and return the leftover ham to the pot along with the diced potatoes. Cook 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are soft. Taste, and add pepper as needed.