Old Jars

Every year I give away some sort of homemade gift to the neighbors and those who provide services for our family.  I do this mostly because I want to show appreciation for them but also because I love getting my hands elbow deep in some project or another.  It gets me in the spirit of the season.

This year, I saved up some of my pasta sauce jars and in lieu of throwing them in the recycle bin I decided I would figure a way to use them as gifts.  The Classico Brand Pasta Sauce Jars are particularly pretty to me but they are only 24 oz. (3 cups) and most gift-in-a-jar recipes are for 1 quart jars (32 oz. or 4 cups).  I was in a bit of a quandary until I found this great recipe for seasoned bean soup here.

I'm hoping the soup mix will be a refreshing change from all the usual sweet gifts given out this time of year.  Sweet indulgences are great, but a savory gift is nice every once and a while too.  I made a few modifications to the recipe in regards to preparation to make it easier for others to prepare.  The written recipe seemed way too laborious for most to attempt so I did a little research and some testing to make it crock pot easy.  It takes a lot longer but allows you to actually step away from the stove.  The crock pot does the work, not the cook.

I made the little graphic (see below) with my instructions in Photoshop and then printed it out on card stock, punched it, and wrapped it in ribbon.  I thought they turned out to be real cute.

Note: I couldn't find all the beans in the recipe but I found others that would work just fine.  Below is the end result.

Seasoned Six Bean Soup Mix!