Thread: Bean Soup

Let me know what you guys think.
With colder weather approaching I thought it might be a good idea to cook up some soup for my girlfriend and myself to warm ourselves up a bit. As a kid I hated soup but my parents would also push it on my brother and me. Not having much nutritional knowledge my guess is that a person can make most soups to be pretty nutritious/healthy with minimal effort put into it. So here's what I did:
I tried to replicate a recipe my dad always made. No real name just bean soup. I started out by soaking some kidney beans and great white northern beans (I think they are called) and added one ham hock letting it all boil together for about 10 minutes or so, bringing it down to a simmer. I cut up some carrots, celery, onions, and added about 4-5 cloves of garlic (I really like garlic) and once I added the vegetable I brought the mixture to a boil once again for about 10-15 minutes or so stirring it regularly, bringing it down to a simmer keeping it there for about 1.5 hours after the 10-15 min of boiling.
I didn’t add any spices besides bay leaves figuring people could add salt n pepper if they wanted in their own serving and I also remembered my mom telling me that the ham hock already gives the soup some salty flavor so I should be careful about adding salt.
After letting it simmer for a while I had myself a bowl and it wasn't half bad. But it was missing something. So I called up the folks and found that I should have added tomato puree into the mixture to give it a little bit more flavor. Once I added the tomato puree earlier this morning the soup was actually pretty good.
What do you guys think about the 'healthiness' of the soup?

I love all kinds of beans too. I make black bean chilli.2lbs of 93/7 ground beef or ground turkey,3 cans black beans chili seasoning and 1 24oz jar of med salsa. takes 30-45 mins to make it makes enough and keeps well so I can have it to take with me for a couple of days.