HEARTY BEEF & BEAN SOUP

1 cup of dried speckled beans, soaked overnight

1 large or 2 small onions

2 cloves of garlic

4 to 6 beef soup bones or shins

1 large or 2 smaller carrots

1 diced potato

1 x 410 gram tinned tomato

1 chopped celery rib

½ cup pearl barley

½ cup red lentils

1 liter stock - we use homemade chicken stock

Fresh herbs - rosemary, thyme, parsley, and a bay leave

Soak beans overnight. In the morning, rinse beans well in a sieve under running water.

Transfer to a saucepan, fill it with boiling water, and boil rapidly for 10 minutes. Rinse beans well. (This gets rid of the toxins in the beans.)

Place beans in slow cooker/pot.

Fry onion in a pan, with a drizzle of olive oil, until translucent.

Add garlic cloves and fry for a minute. Add to slow cooker/pot.

Fry your beef soup bones or shins in the pan until well browned. Add to slow cooker/pot.

Add 2 cups of warm water to the pan and simmer. After about 5 minutes, add the water to the slow cooker/pot.

Add diced carrots, potato and celery, the tin of tomato, the pearl barley and red lentils to the slow cooker/pot.

Add 1 liter of stock.

Place a twig each of rosemary, thyme and parsley on top, as well as a bay leave or two.

The important thing is to simmer it gently for the whole day to bring out that meat-bone heartiness, so you will need a slow cooker, or a slow stove plate and a heavy pot with a solid lid.

Put the slow cooker on auto for the whole day, and give it a stir or two every now and then. You may want to remove the herb twigs when the rosemary starts loosing it's leaves.

By the end of the day you will have a hearty, thick soup. It is ready when the meat fall off the bones.

#beef #bean #soup #sop