Ham and Bean Soup

We had some leftover ham in our freezer that needed to be used so I thought we could try this Ham and Bean soup recipe:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Ham-and-Bean-Soup-II/Detail.aspx

I had to make quite a few changes to the recipe to make it work for our family. First off, instead of cooking beans I used some pinto beans that were already cooked. I didn't use a hambone and we had no carrots. Since I wasn't cooking the beans I didn't use all the water. Instead, I added all the ingredients than added water to cover it, which was about a quart and a half or 4 cups of water. I then added the spices and simmered the ingredients until the vegetables were cooked.

This soup was not bad, but it wasn't great. Nobody in the family was a big fan of it. I felt that the soup was slightly bland and needed more flavor, but that could have been because of all the changes I made. I probably won't do a ham and bean soup anytime soon.