スロークッカーで作るハムと豆のスープ（残ったハムを使用）＋自家製ロールパンとアップルクリスプ

スロークッカーで作るハムと豆のスープ（残ったハムを使用）＋自家製ロールパンとアップルクリスプ

Today I’m taking one baked ham and I’m turning the leftovers into a big pot of ham and bean soup, some buttery dinner rolls, and my old-fashioned apple crisp for dessert. We even woke up to our first little skiff of snow this morning here in Nova Scotia. So, it was the perfect kind of day to stay cozy inside and make something comforting from what we already have. Hi, I’m Tina and welcome to Simply Serene. Here in my channel, I share cozy recipes, simple living inspiration, and a little glimpse into country life here in Nova Scotia. So, grab a cup of coffee, pull up a chair, and let’s spend the day together in the kitchen. I am starting off by cooking some beans for my soup. Now, I’m using a combination of um white navy beans, small white beans, and I think they’re blackeyed beans. I’m not exactly sure, but beans are so economical. And I’m just going to cook them in my Instant Pot. So, I measured out 900 g of the beans. I’m rinsing them really well. If there’s any stones or anything in the beans, I’ll remove them. Then I’m simply putting them in my Instant Pot and I’m going to add 9 cups of water and a teaspoon of salt. And I do like to add a bay leaf for extra flavor. Then I’m just going to cook these on high pressure for 42 minutes and let them come to a natural pressure release. I’m making more beans than what I actually need for the recipe, but since I’m going to be cooking up beans anyways, I like to do extra so I can freeze them. Then they’re ready to grab and thaw and use in other dishes. Lot quicker to do it that way than it is to always start with dried beans that need to be cooked. Now, of course, you could use canned beans. They will work really, really well for today’s soup recipe, but I’m just showing you what I do, especially when dry beans are so economical. Groceries have gotten so expensive lately, haven’t they? And it just feels like every trip to the store will cost more than the last trip. And that’s why I love meals like this. Simple, cozy food that stretches a single ingredient into several delicious dishes. I’m getting an early start this morning. Getting my beans cooked. Still in my pajamas. Hair is not done. But the beans can be cooking and I can get the soup started in my slow cooker and then move on with the rest of my day. I cooked a beautiful baked ham this past weekend and as you can see I have lots left over and this is after our main meal sandwiches and breakfasts. So I knew I wanted to get this ham um sorted out with the leftovers. Today’s soup is going to make a huge batch that I can freeze. I’m probably going to pressure can some of the leftover soup and I’m also going to cut what I don’t use in the soup today into cubes and slices to freeze for additional meals. You know, with hams being so expensive, I actually went almost a year without buying one. I just didn’t want to pay those prices. But I’ll tell you, when they finally went on sale this past year, I grabbed a few and tucked them into the freezer. So, when I made this um baked ham the other day, I did make a quick little glaze, just brown sugar, dijon mustard, and I added a spoonful of my hot zucchini jelly that I canned this summer. I do have a video for that one if you’ve missed uh if you missed it. So, I just mixed everything together, spread it over the ham, and as you can maybe see here, it left such a beautiful spicy, sweet flavored glaze. It was fantastic. I always make sure I get hams that have a bone. This to me is the prize of the ham because I love making ham and beans. Um, that’s a different recipe as well as this soup. There’s so many things you can do with a ham bone. So, I did leave quite a bit of meat on this bone. And now I’m just putting it into my slow cooker. And I’m going to let it simmer most of the day um in the broth. Quite often I use my homemade canned broth, but today I’m just using um Better Than Bon chicken broth. I’m adding four cups of broth. And then I’m going to add a little bit of thyme. This is about 2 tepoon of thyme, dried thyme. Now I’m adding a teaspoon of dried powdered sage. And I also have some sage that I saved and dried from my garden last year. So I’m going to add some of that as well. The sage and the thyme, I believe, are key for making this soup so delicious. So I wouldn’t skip them. And the recipe also calls for margarm, which I don’t have any. I keep forgetting to pick some up at the store. And this is really the only recipe I use margarm for, but it’s not going to be really missed as long as you have sage and thyme. And I’m also going to add some summer savory, which is fabulous in this soup. Then all you need is a bit of pepper. I’m not adding any additional salt to this soup because of course the ham is salty enough. And then I’m just going to mix my seasonings in that broth, pour it on top of my ham bone, and I’m going to top up the slow cooker so that water covers the ham bone. So, this is going to make a huge batch of soup, which is so perfect for um freezing or like I mentioned earlier, canning, so that you’ve got it for lots and lots of meals to come. So, I really think that um getting a ham, especially if you can get it when it’s on sale, grabbing an extra um it’s so worth the money because you can just get so many meals um out of that one ham. Same with the dried beans. You can just get tons and tons of meals. Saves lots of time and money later. So, now I’m just cutting up my ham. I cutting it into cubes, removing the uh excess fat. And I’m also going to slice some for future breakfasts and sandwiches. Because I left so much meat on the ham bone, I’m not going to need to add any additional ham. Once that ham bone has been simmering for a few hours in the slow cooker and I take it out, um I’ll be able to get a lot of meat off that bone for the soup. Okay, so my beans are done. They are. They have been the 42 minutes was up 32 minutes ago. So, I still have my beans in the Instant Pot. I’m going to let them do a natural pressure release. And then I will transfer them to my soup. In the meantime, what I’ve decided to do is I just took all that cube ham. There’s a lot more. There’s like another three cups worth. So, I got about seven cups of the cubed ham. And then I also sliced some ham, probably about three cups worth. And I’m going to freeze them. So, the sliced ham, um, I know we love it for sandwiches or if we want to fry some up in the morning with some eggs and potatoes and toast and have a nice baked breakfast, that’s there. But the cubed ham, I want to can some meals and I don’t have time to do pressure canning today. In fact, I probably won’t have time for a little while. So, I’m going to freeze the entire lot of ham in the one big bag and then I will make a big batch or a couple batches of different recipes and pressure can everything the same day. Um otherwise I would be making um smaller size bags of this cubed ham. Um I have a kiche recipe that is absolutely unbelievable and this ham would be fabulous in that. Um so I might save some of the ham for kiche. But either way, this is going to be a ton of meals with this ham. So it’s 10:25. I started getting my soup and everything ready around 8 o’clock this morning and later on this afternoon, not even. Well, it’s not even afternoon. It’s still morning. But once the beans have done the natural pressure release, then I will add them to the soup and then sauté my vegetables and put them in the soup. I don’t always sauté my vegetables before I put them in soups. Oh, I just heard the little button go down for the um beans. So, I’ll go ahead and add them to the soup. But what I was saying is I don’t always sauté my vegetables when I put them in soup. Um, but this particular soup recipe, I like that um extra flavor, that little caramelizing that you get when you sauté your onions and carrots. So, I do like to sauté for this recipe, but you can just go ahead and put your vegetables in the soup. Now, I’m going to be using carrots and celery and onions. I have used everything from bok choy to zucchini. Like you can put what you have in this soup and stretch it out. Um or you can keep it simple. You can put in potatoes. You can even put in rice or barley. I’ve done that in the past. And sometimes I’ve added even a can of tomatoes to stretch it out or tomato paste. There are so many things that you can do with this soup. I do like the um the tomato uh the tomatoes and tomato paste in this soup. And sometimes I add a little sugar just to sweeten it a little little. But I’m going to wait and taste it this afternoon and then decide if I’m going to add um the tomatoes. But in the meantime, I’m going to go ahead and add my beans. Then I’m going to get in my office, do some work, and then I’ll come back and show you how I finish this unbelievably delicious soup. Which, by the way, I do want to pressure can the leftovers. So, I may do that tomorrow. Either way, let’s get the beans in the soup. The beans are cooked perfectly. They’re not hard, but they’re not mushy. This works for me every time. So, anytime I need to cook my beans, my dried beans, this is how I do it. And I generally use the same cooking time for, you know, kidney beans, whatever beans I’m using. Um, and like I said, today I’m using a mixture. And I don’t need all these beans. I purposely cooked extra so I could freeze some. So, I’m just adding half the beans to the soup. That looks like a lot of beans. And it is a lot of beans. But this is a humongous pot of soup. And um it’s just the right amount of beans actually for this amount of soup. Even though the beans had a bay leaf in with the water when they were cooked, I do always put bay leaves in almost everything I make from soups to stews to spaghetti sauce. And I’m adding another one here. These are the biggest baileies I’ve ever seen. So, I would ordinarily put two or three, but because these are so big, I’m only putting in one. And I’m just going to let that soup simmer for a few hours. I have about six cups left of the beans. So, I divided them into two bags, three cups each. There’s close to eight cups of beans in the soup, so that gave me a lot of beans. Now, I’m just taking the ham bone out of the slow cooker, and I’m going to take the meat off the bone, discard the bone, and then just put the meat back into the slow cooker. But first, I do need to let this cool down cuz it is awfully hot. So, now I’m going to move on to sautéing my vegetables. I’m chopping up two large onions, and I’m just going to lightly sauté them. And I’m just adding a little bit of olive oil. This is actually garlic infused olive oil. And you could use regular olive oil, but that’s what I’m using just to add a little bit of that um garlic flavor. If you wanted to add garlic to your soup, you absolutely could, but I didn’t. I just used a little bit of that um garlic flavored olive oil. And my onions are just being chopped up. You could put in less, you can put in more, but because it is such a huge batch of soup, I decided to go ahead and use two large onions. This is definitely one of those soup recipes, my friends, where you can clean out the fridge. Use what you have and put it in your soup. I had two stocks of celery in my fridge and they weren’t they were not looking as good as they did the day I bought them. But there was nothing wrong with them. I just took off the ends and diced them finally and they went in with the onions. I also had half a red pepper left over from a salad I made earlier this week and it had actually frozen our crisper. For some reason, the temperature’s gone a little bit wonky, and so I’ve had some veggies freezing on me. Um, but I thought, you know what? I’m going to go ahead and slice up the rest of that red pepper and put that in as well. This is really a soup that you can customize based on yours and your family’s tastes and preferences. You could even use canned vegetables if you like, but I do prefer using fresh. And of course, you can use frozen. And I did use some frozen vegetables, which you’ll see in a few minutes. I’m not going to sauté these peppers. Instead, I’m just going to add them directly to the soup because they’ll cook just beautifully in with the soup. But the celery and the onions, I do like to have them sauteed and softened a little bit before I put them in this soup. And ordinarily, I would be sautéing some carrots, but turns out I’m out of fresh carrots. And I forgot I made a double batch of uh Cooper’s Food last week and used up the rest of the carrots. So, I need to get some more. So, this is a bag of frozen uh Great Value brand vegetables. It’s got cauliflower and broccoli and carrots. I did not want cauliflower in this soup. I love cauliflower, but it’s not a flavor I wanted in the soup. So, I went through and pulled out the broccoli and the carrots and then just put in a few handfuls of that. Now, I’m just breaking up the ham. It literally falls apart. I don’t even need a knife. And I’m just going to add all the ham from that ham bone. The onions are ready. I don’t want them to overcook or get too brown. They’re just nice and translucent. So, they’re going in the soup now as well. Give that a little stir and finish adding the rest of my ham. As you can see, there was a lot of meat that came off of that bone. And I’m just going to put it all into the pot. Some of the beans came out when I took the ham bone out. So, I’m just going to put all of that goodness right back into the pot. This soup is starting to smell and look absolutely delicious. And when it was finished, it was out of this world. Okay, I’m going to taste this and um decide if I need to add any more seasonings. Um I have not added any salt to this soup obviously because of ham. Hams can be very salty. Plus, people can add their own salt when they dish have their bowl of soup. So, let me try this. Oh my gosh. There is a reason why I have been making this soup for oh my gosh, almost 30 years. Because I know where I was living when I first tried this recipe. um which was shared to me I believe from my mom and uh yeah it’s been a favorite for years and it freezes really well and as you saw when I was you know improvising with the carrots anything goes anything goes use what you have um yeah this is so good so I think I’m going to hold off on adding the um tinned tomatoes and tomato tomato paste actually um because this is really really good just the way it is. But the other thing I could do is I could um take half the batch like say later tonight or tomorrow when I’m um putting it away. I can actually add some tomatoes to half a batch and then I have a bit of a variation with the soup. Um, I might just leave it this time around though because it is really, really good. I have I should put the lid back on. So, I have also made this soup in the past using the dried beans. Um, I forget what they’re called. They’re like a mixed bean and they have barley in with them. You could add barley to this. Don’t want to add some barley. I do love barley. I just put barley in the last batch of soup that I made, but I love that nutty texture of barley. I think I’m going to add some barley. Why not? As you can tell, the sun is making an appearance, which is really nice cuz we actually woke up to our first little bit of snow this morning. Um, probably messing up with the lighting on my camera right now, but it’s all good. So, I just dumped what was left in my bag of pearl barley. And let’s just say there was about half a cup. Let’s go with that. Half a cup of barley. Uh, you could add rice. You could leave it if you want. Okay. So, I’m going to add a little bit of thyme. I’m going to do about a teaspoon of each, about that much, and put it in. If you’re wondering why my air fryer is open, uh maybe you didn’t even notice it until I pointed it out, but that’s how I’ve been drawing my my seeds. So, last night I baked an acorn squash from our garden. And I’ll just show you. This is how I dry my seeds. Going on a bit of a tangent. But yeah, so I just put them on paper towel and I label them because I didn’t label some earlier this fall. I’m like, “Oh, wait. Are those zucchini or are those squash? What the heck are those?” And then I just keep the door open and then I make little envelopes. I’ll show you that, too. Tina’s going on a tangent. So, I just sat down one night with a glass of wine and I made all my little seed packets with my little notes. So, this one’s butternut squash. Hang on, I can’t read without my glasses. Butternut squash seeds 2025 from our garden. West Coast seeds original plant. Fabulous. Um, I love West Coast seeds. So, um, if they weren’t West Coast seeds, I can’t remember what brand of seeds they were originally, but I have my packets of seeds. um out my garden shed. But these have been all the seeds that I’ve been saving just from this year. And I’m kind of going on this whole save your seeds, grow your food kind of thing, right? Which I’ve always done, but this year even more so. So every vegetable that I’m using, I’m if it if they’re seeds, I’m saving them. So anyways, that’s that’s why that’s like that. So, I also added some summer savory. And I’m going to use the last of my sage. This is actually from 2024. And I have saved my sage um from this year. So, I’m just going to add some more dried sage. Crumble it up. I’m going to finish off. is um I will say actually with this soup I think the sage and the thyme these particular seasonings are what really make this soup. Um so it’s fine I think if you substitute like the margarm for summer savory like I did. If you don’t have neither I would at least put the thyme and I would definitely put the sage in. I think this thyme and the sage are key to this soup. So yeah, let me show you what I’m doing. So look at this deliciousness. You can add parsley. You could add pepper. But oh my gosh, and those beans are so hearty. And if you wanted to put a potato in or two, you could do that. You can put butternut squash. You can put, like I said earlier, uh bok choy is really good. Spinach. Um all those things are so good. And this is one of those soups that um you can, you know, make it a new soup every night just by adding different ingredients with the leftovers. I’ve also decided to pull out my bread machine. I’m going to make our favorite dinner rolls that well, these are our favorite dinner rolls done in the bread machine. And there’s another dinner roll recipe that I love, but this is quick and it can do its thing while the soup is doing its thing. And yeah, this is just going to be an awesome, delicious dinner. I love this recipe because the bread machine makes the dough and it saves me so much time. It’s so easy and it does all the work while I tidy up or get dessert ready. So, here’s what goes in. One cup of warm milk and half a cup of butter. It was a little bit too cold, so I did warm it up a little bit in the microwave before adding it into the um into the bread machine. Next, I’m adding two eggs one at a time. I just lightly whisk them. And my original recipe called for a/4 cup of sugar. I actually only use about an eighth between an 1/8 and 1/4 of a cup. Otherwise, I find it’s a little bit too sweet, but that’s completely up to you. And then I’m adding 1 and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Give that a little whisky. And then I’m going to add four cups of allpurpose flour. Next, I’m going to be adding 1 and 1/2 teaspoon of dry yeast. I like to use the Red Star brand and set the machine to the dough cycle. Now, I’m going to take a little break from the kitchen and head on out to the garden with my little pooch. I still find it so hard to believe that the summer season and gardening season is done for the year, but I do have some treasures still in the garden. So, I decided I needed to get some fresh air, take my little koopy outside so he could do his business. And look, beets. It is November 12th, and our beets did not do well this year with the drought that we had. Like normally I have so many beets and I can pickle them, which is my favorite, and I send them home, but not this year. So, I just left them. Anyways, um I planted like these. I don’t know if you can tell. You’ll tell when I wash them, but they uh they’re kind of like yellowy. So, I had all these awesome different colored beets. Anyways, beet greens are delicious. So, I just thought, you know what? Why don’t I pick a whole bunch of beets and even the beets themselves that are really really tiny and put them in my soup? So, that’s what I’m gonna do. And it’s cold out. I have to tell you, coming from outside where it’s gotten so cold into my warm cozy home, our wood stove is on and smelling that soup simmering away. Holy cow, just the best. and to be adding some vegetables from my garden this time of year. What a treat. And these are beautiful, beautiful, fresh beet leaves. If you’ve never eaten beet leaves, you’re missing out. Even this time of year, of course, you can get beets at the grocery store. Eat those beet leaves. They’re fantastic and they’re so good for you. And the color of these beets. Look at this beautiful bright yellow beet. Oh my gosh. These are going to add a beautiful sweetness to the soup. And again, this soup is completely uh forgiving and flexible. You can absolutely use what you’ve got and it’s always going to turn out delicious. This soup is turning into a masterpiece. It never disappoints. I mean, just look at this. And it’s so economical. A little broth, a meat bone, some dried beans, and whatever vegetables you have on hand. Oh my goodness. Okay, now it’s time to shape my dough into little buns and have them on the tray to rise for another 45 minutes. This dough is so easy to work with. You can get uh as many buns as you want out of this particular batch. You can make them bigger or smaller. And I’m just doing them kind of willy-nilly. Some of the buns are going to be smaller than others. Some are going to be bigger. But they’re so easy and so delicious. So, this is how I make them into little balls. I literally just pull up each corner into the center. And then I just kind of tuck it together and push it up through my thumb and fingers like I’m showing you here. And then I just press in that center and it’s just makes perfectly shaped rolls every time. So I’m gonna do that with all of them. And I’m going to put a clean towel on top and let them rise for about 45 minutes. I decided that I wanted to make a dessert to go with today’s dinner. I don’t make desserts all the time, but today I had a craving for apple crisp. I just thought it’d be the perfect um dessert to have with such a cozy meal. What I’m doing is I’m combining 1 cup of brown sugar, one cup of flour, and one cup of oats. You can use quick oats or large flake oats. And then I just blitz it together. Now, I should have used my bigger food processor, so I’m doing it in batches. And this makes quite a large amount of the crisp topping. So, I just put what I don’t use in a Ziploc bag and store it in the fridge and then I have the topping for whenever I need to make a fruit crumble. You can use any variety of apples. Today, I’m using Macintosh. And once they’re sliced and in the baking dish, I’m combining half a cup of sugar with a teaspoon of cinnamon, a little dash of clove, a little sprinkle of nutmeg, and a little touch of ginger. Stir it all together and then sprinkle it right on top of your apples. Then once your sugar and spices have been added to the apples, all you do is you take a cup of water, add a teaspoon of vanilla. I also like to add half a teaspoon of caramel extract, which I get from Watkins, but that’s optional. Pour that on top of your apples and sugar and spices, and give it a little mix. Sprinkle on your crisp, your crumbly mix, and put it in the oven to bake for approximately 45 minutes. That’s it. And it is so good. And I also have a really awesome tray, a pie tray that my mom gave me years ago. You’ll see it there. It catches any drips. I haven’t seen these in the stores forever, but my gosh, they’re so awesome. I’ve put the rest of the topping in a bag, put a date on it, and popped it in the fridge. Do you know it’s supper time? Yes. I’ve been making homemade dog food now for about 3 years. And um Cooper is getting 3/4 of a cup of his homemade dog food for dinner. He also gets 3/4 of a cup in the morning. And he gets liver supplements and they’re really big. So, I give half in the morning and half with his supper. So, don’t tell my vet, but the only way I can get it down the hatch is to hide it in a little bit of cat food and he gobbles it up before it has a chance to dissolve and get icky. So, he’s pretty happy at supper time, let me tell you. Leave a comment down below and let me know if you’d like me to show you how I make my dog food. And it is bet approved and Cooper loves it. Now it’s time for a little treat for me. It has been a day, let me tell you. But I got this gorgeous big pot full of soup. The buns are ready to go in the oven. The apple crisp is in the oven. I got work done on the computer. It’s 20 to 6. Cheers. I’m going to have a little bit of a sit down while I wait for my husband to come home from work. By then, those buns will be baked, and then I’m going to have a cup of tea, do a little bit of knitting, and call it a day. My apple crisp is bubbly and golden, so it is perfect. And it is time to put the dinner rolls in the oven. They also bake at 350°. So, I’m going to pop those in the oven for about 20 minutes until they’re golden. I’ll tell you what, there’s nothing better than the smell of fresh bread and soup on a cold evening and then to smell that apple crisp. Oh my lord. Simple pleasures that I don’t take for granted. We are so blessed. Look at those buns. These are sensational. They are so fluffy, so light, so delicious. Oh my goodness, they’re one of our favorite recipes for dinner rolls. This is truly such a simple meal, but it’s so hearty and comforting. And the best part, it’s all made from ingredients we already had on hand. So, I know things are tough right now. Food prices are climbing, and it can feel overwhelming. But days like this remind me that we can still eat well and live well by slowing down and cooking from scratch and using what we’ve got. And that’s what Simply Serene is all about. Finding peace, joy, and gratitude in the little things. Even something as simple as a pot of soup. And I just really hope you give this recipe a try. If you do, leave a comment down below and let me know how it turned out for you. And if you substitute or changed any ingredients, let me know what you used. Either way, this is truly an economical meal. A little goes a long way when you’re using dried beans, a ham bone, and vegetables you have on hand. So, Brian’s home and we’re about to have dinner. He’s going to do the taste test. Hot. Super good. That’s the dip and dunk. The dip and dunk. Oh my god, those are good. I know, right? Soft. Oh my god. They should be illegal. I know. Even smelling them baking was so good. Just imagine. That is superb. And what about the soup? That is excellent, too. Is it? Oh, yeah. It’s all good. That’s a cold winter night meal. I know. That is good. Wow. Look how much this has thickened up. Like it has absolutely just come to a really beautiful consistency. And the variations of the beans and just everything that’s in it. Oh my gosh, it just looks amazing. It is hot, but holy cow, that’s good. And look at this. I love this soup so much. That is beyond delicious. We should really do this at the table. Anyways, I have been looking forward to this all day. It was so worth it. Do you think it gets much better than this, Brian? No. Brian doesn’t even know what I have for dessert. Yes, it’s a chocolate cake. No, look in the oven. I put it back in there to keep it warm. M apple crisp. Crisp. Yeah, with those Macintosh apples I bought in PEI at the market. Oh, it’s going to be good. I know. Cuz we have leftover homemade ice uh whipping cream. So, I thought we would have that leftover whipping cream with apple crisp. Good dinner, huh? Very good. I hope you guys enjoyed today’s video and thank you for spending time with me today in my kitchen. These are tried and trueue recipes that I’ve been making for years and years and I’m so happy to share them with you. So, until next time, take care and remember, life is short, so make the most of that dash in between.

If you’ve got leftover ham, this is such a lifesaver. Today I’m making my Slow Cooker Ham & Bean Soup — a longtime favourite — along with homemade bread-machine dinner rolls and my easy apple crisp. This is simple, comforting home cooking that truly stretches a ham into something wonderful.

We even had our first little skip of snow this morning… the perfect day to stay in, cook, bake, and let the slow cooker do its magic. I hope you enjoy spending the day in the kitchen with me. 🍁💕

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🍲 SLOW COOKER HAM & BEAN SOUP

6–8 cups cooked white beans (see note below)
Ham bone + leftover ham pieces
4 cups chicken broth
Water to cover ham bone
2 large onions, sautéed in olive or garlic-infused oil
Carrots (fresh or frozen — I used a frozen carrot/broccoli mix)
Any frozen veggie mix you like
½ cup barley
1–2 cups greens (I used chopped beet greens + tiny garden beets; spinach/kale also work)
4 tsp thyme
4 tsp sage
1 tsp marjoram or Summer Savory
2 tsp black pepper
Salt (optional — depends on your ham)

Directions

1. Place ham bone in slow cooker. Add broth, enough water to cover, seasonings + bay leaf. Cook on High for 1–2 hours. Remove bone, pick off meat, return meat to pot.
2. Sauté onion, celery, and carrot until onions are translucent; add to slow cooker with 6–8 cups cooked beans.
3. Add frozen veggies, greens, and ½ cup barley.
4. Season to taste with thyme, sage, pepper, and salt if needed.
5. Cook: High 4–5 hours or Low 7–9 hours.
This makes a big batch and freezes beautifully.

⭐ How I Cook My Dry Beans (Instant Pot)

900 g dried white beans
9 cups water
1 bay leaf
1 tsp salt

Add everything to Instant Pot. Cook 42 minutes high pressure, natural release.
Measure 6–8 cups for the soup.
Freeze the remaining 6 cups (two 3-cup bags).

➡️ To cook just enough beans for this soup: place 2 cups dried beans in a pot, add water to cover by 2″. Boil two-three minutes, cover and let sit one hour. Drain and add to your slow cooker.

🌟 My Favourite Variations/Add-ins:

Cooked bacon, dried hot peppers, bok choy, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, Worcestershire, squash, sweet potato, macaroni, rice, green peas, spinach, kale — or even blend the soup!
The secret is always the same: ham bone + broth + white beans + thyme + sage + pepper. Once you’ve got those, it’s always delicious.
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🥖 BREAD MACHINE DINNER ROLLS

(Makes about 24)

1 cup warm milk
½ cup butter
⅛–¼ cup sugar (depending on your preferred sweetness)
2 eggs
1½ tsp salt
4 cups flour
1½–2¼ tsp yeast (I use Red Star yeast so I only need to use 1½ tsp – if you’re using a different brand, you may want to use 2¼ tsp yeast)

Directions:

1. Add ingredients to bread machine in recommended order.
2. Select Dough cycle.
3. Shape into rolls; rise 45 minutes.
4. Bake 350°F for 20 minutes.

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🍎 QUICK & EASY APPLE CRISP

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Apples:
6–8 apples, sliced into baking dish.

Crisp Topping:
1 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
¾ cup butter
→ Blitz together. (Extra stores well in the fridge.)

Spiced Flour Mix:
½ cup flour
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
Pinch cloves
Pinch dried ginger
→ Sprinkle over apples.

Liquid:
½ cup water
1 tsp vanilla
½ tsp caramel extract
→ Pour over apples. Toss. Add topping. Bake 45–60 minutes.

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“Life is short — so make the most of the dash in between.”

~ Tina xoxo

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