Hamhock Soup

This was my first time making this soup. I had this soup a few years back at a church event but haven't been brave enough to try it out. After add the 3rd hamhock to our freezer at Christmas, I knew I had to put it on the menu. I had forgotten that I had bought "White Navy Beans" to put with this until I cleaned out my cupboard the next day so I used pinto beans from our storage. I had planned to have this for dinner on Sunday. Saturday night I put two cups of beans in 6 cups of water to soak overnight.

The next morning I followed this recipe:

Add ham to a crockpot (according to the recipe it can be any kind of ham...cut ham, ham bone, etc) but for the heartist of taste use the hamhock, lotsa fat!

Put the crockpot on high to start the water boiling and add the ham. Once it starts getting really hot, but not hot enough to boil in the pot, add a dash of salt and a couple dashes of black pepper to get the stock going.

Add to that: minced garlic, crushed ginger, oregano, parsley. Let it come to a boil then reduct to simmer. This is the essence of the soup stock.

On simmer add a couple pads of butter to help break up the ham. Then add: diced peeled potatoes, cut carrots, diced onions, cut celery, and beans (rinsed and soaked overnight then drained).

I simmered mine on high all day. By Sunday night, my beans were still crunchy! So we let it cook until 10 p.m. with the intent of just eating it on Monday night instead. Then we remembered we had guests coming Monday so we put it in the fridge and decided to cook it again on Tuesday. So it cooked all day on high on Tuesday. The taste was WONDERFUL!!! Very flavorful and very filling...the only problem...we still had some crunchy beans! Is there something I did wrong w/ the beans? We'll definitely make this soup again but I'll probably try different beans in it.