Green Bean Soup (Bean soup)

          So I know it's been a while since I've last updated my blog.  Since it was the end of the semester it's always a little hectic and I go into school work mode, which means I cook and bake a ton but I don't have enough time to write about it.  So since Christmas is over and it's New Year's Eve and I've been really sick for the past couple of days, I decided to stay in and update my blog.  I know it doesn't sound like the best New Year's plan ever, but I don't want to risk getting sick again.  I've been sick for about three weeks and let me tell you, for a while it felt like I was never going to get better. 
        Onto happier thought though, this bean soup is an absolute favorite of our family.  We plant a huge garden every year and we make this bean soup with green beans fresh out of the garden. Literally, we can barely wait for the first batch of beans to get ripe so that we can make this soup.   In the winter when the green beans aren't quite as good, we use beans that we have canned from the summer.  I would recommend that if you're not fortunate enough to have fresh (or canned yourself) green beans on hand, use store bought canned green beans.  Make sure to drain and rinse off the beans before using and if you use store bought canned green beans, you can skip the boiling part since your beans are already soft.  This soup can really be made to your own taste, it really involves playing with the garlic and pepper to try and find a combination that is perfect for you.

Recipe

1/2 pound of bacon, cut into bite-sized pieces
3 tablespoons of flour
2 or 3 can of evaporated milk
2 cans of green beans (or a pound of fresh)
2 or 3 cups of milk (don't use less than 1%, it will make the soup taste funny)
1 tsp of garlic salt
1/2 tsp of pepper

Directions
      If using fresh green beans, snip off the ends, cut them into bite-sized pieces and put them in a pot of salted water.  Bring to a boil and boil the beans until they can easily be pierced with a fork.  Drain and set aside.  If using canned beans, open, rinse and set aside, no need to pre-boil. 
      Fry the bacon in a the bottom of a large soup pot.  Cook the bacon until it's very crispy, because putting it in the soup will soften it and you don't want it to be mushy.  Once the bacon is done, remove the bacon pieces from the grease with a slotted spoon, but keep the grease in the pan, that's how we will build our roux.  Turn the heat down to low on the pan of grease and add the flour.  Depending on how much flour you add, the soup will either be thicker or thinner.  3 Tbsps makes a medium thick soup, 2 Tbsps would make a thinner soup and 4 Tbsps would make a thicker soup (this also depends on the amount of milk you add) .  Stir the flour into the grease and cook for a few minutes, at least 3 maybe 4 minutes so that you cook the raw flour taste out. 
       When the flour and grease are a golden brown color, begin whisking the mixture.  While whisking slowly add the cans of evaporated milk.  The evaporated milk is what gives this soup its great flavor and mouth feel, so you can choose how much you add.  I would highly suggest the three cans, but that's my preference.  Make sure to whisk constantly or you'll get little flour lumps and they are not tasty. 
        Once you've added all of the evaporated milk, add in the regular milk.  Now here is the key to the regular milk situation.  Depending on how you want your soup, either thick or thin, is the key to how much milk you want to add.  For thick soup, only add a cup or two of regular milk, for thin soup add anywhere from three to four cups of milk.  I normally do an even three and three for a medium soup. 
        Next comes the seasoning.  This is also done by taste.  I normally add at least 1tsp of garlic salt, but if that's not enough then I switch to garlic powder and regular salt.  I don't add a lot of salt because the bacon is rather salty.  I also had a generous 1/2 tsp to a 1tsp of pepper (depending on taste).  This is really a soup that you just have to continue to taste until you have that AHA moment. 
When you think you've got the perfect soup, add your green beans and bacon back to the pot and serve hot. 
       This is a soup that I've made a 1,000 times and every time I do, I have to do it by taste.  I've tried to pay attention so that I have an exact recipe and when I told my grandmother what I was doing, she laughed.  She said "My mother just threw in pinches and handfuls and gave everything a big stir and presto, delicious"  I guess this is just one of those soups where a pinch here and pinch there and suddenly you've got magic.  My family has been making this soup forever and I can hardly wait to someday feed my family this soup!