Pour oil into a pot and on high heat saute the diced onion, celery, carrots and salt until the onion gets a glassy / translucent look for about 3 -5 minutes.
Mix in the diced garlic, black pepper and the ham hocks. If we have quick cooking beans or any other legumes like lentils, we have to precook the ham hock now. Pour water into to the pot until the ham hocks are submerged, bring it to boil and on low heat simmer them for an hour.
Add beans, tomatoes and fill the pot up with water until all the ingredients are submerged.
Put the lid on and bring the water to boil then simmer until the beans are ready on low heat which could be anywhere between 60 - 120 minutes. Optionally, add more vegetables to the soup like broccoli, brussel sprouts 10 minutes before finishing the soup.
Ham hock soup with vegetables (low carb)
Place all the ingredients into a pot.
Fill the pot up with water until all the ingredients are submerged.
Put the lid on bring the water to boil then on low heat simmer the soup for about 2 hours until the meat is tender and comes off the bones easily.
Add vegetables to the soup and cook them ready in about 10 minutes.
Notes
Once the ham hock is cooked it can be roasted under the broiler in 10 minutes that will serve as a perfect main meal. Cooking ham hock with vegetables is the perfect stock for later meals, store it in batches.Nutritional values are calculated for Ham hocks and beans without additional vegetables.