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Recently I made a pot of Great Northern Beans with some leftover ham from  our Christmas feast that I had been keeping in the freezer. We ate beans with hoecakes yesterday, and today I was tasked with doing something with the leftovers.

Now, my usual response to beans or soup leftovers is to begin what we have taken to calling my never-ending pot of soup. Leftovers go in the soup pot along with whatever sturdy vegetables I have on hand, and soup is ready. Over time we add more stock and water and vegetables to the pot and magically the soup pot stays full for days, sometimes weeks.

This time however, I decided to try something different, and I didn’t have much in the way of vegetables around anyway, so I took stock of what I did have on hand, and this White Bean Dip was born.

Ingredients

• 2 cups cooked Great Northern Beans
• 1/2 large onion
• 1/2 cup crumbled crispy fried bacon
• cumin
• garlic
• dill
• dried mustard
• cilantro

Procedure

1.  Drain the beans
2. Fry bacon to a crisp and crumble on top of beans
3. slice onion and fry in the bacon grease
4. add cumin, garlic,dill, mustard and cilantro to taste (I am allergic to recipes that spell out how much spice or herb to use, so I won’t - you know your own tastes)
5. put the whole thing in a food processor and work to a nice paste consistency. Add olive oil if it won’t bind.
6. Enjoy with fresh French bread or homemade crackers.