I miss a good bean soup, so I made up my own, and it actually works pretty good!
I picked up an already-cooked bacon joint and two cans of refried beans from Tesco earlier today. Chopped up an onion and tossed all (plus two cans of water) into a pot, covered and am now slow cooking for a couple of hours.
In a while I'll take the ham off the bone and toss out the skin and bone, leaving just meat (cut into bits) and returned to the bean soup. No real timeframe on this, but since I like mine really thick, I usually let it cook for a while.