It's that time. The holidays are over. Houses are cleaned....well mostly. Presents unwrapped and put away. The kids are getting bored or DRIVING YOU COMPLETELY NUTS. And you have all this food leftover...and (like me), wondering what to do with it.
If your family is anything like mine, at the mentions of leftovers, their eyes glaze over and a visible shudder seems to run through their body. You would think I am asking them to eat pond fungus. They seem to forget how much they enjoyed the food, and scarfed it down like beasts, the first time around.
I don't know about you, but I have a hard time throwing perfectly edible food in the trash because of picky pain in the butts. I was left with more than half of an 8 pound ham after Christmas and couldn't get any takers. Instead of saying "screw it" and chucking the whole thing, I challenged myself to come up with three ways to serve the leftover ham, without having my family be the wiser.
Not only was I successful (and sneaky), but I came up with 3 easy and delicious recipes that I am going to share with you!
All of these are relatively easy and you should have most of the ingredients in your pantry or fridge.
Red Beans and Rice
Left over ham bone and about 2-3 good sized slices of ham, diced
1 pound dried red beans (I use kidney)
1 large onion, chopped. & 1 large red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
Cumin to taste (about 2 tbls). &. 2 bay leaves
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
41/2 cups of water
6 cups hot cooked rice (You can use instant)
1.Soak beans overnight. (You can add a tsp of baking soda to water to cut gassiness of beans.)
2. Throw your soaked beans, ham bone, onion, pepper, cumin, bay leaves, Worcestershire sauce and water into a large Dutch oven. Cover and simmer until beans are soft, (about 2 hours).
3. Remove your ham bone and add the diced ham, stir and simmer for another 10 minutes, or until ham is warmed through.
4. Serve over hot rice and Enjoy!
I usually serve this with some thin sliced Italian bread.
Hot Ham and Mozzarella Cheese Sandwiches
This recipe is simple and easy. My boys LOVE it. The rolls are crispy on the outside and the ham and cheese are soft and melty inside. Yummmm. You can pair it with a salad, or French fries.
8 slices of ham
8 Kaiser rolls
8 slices of mozzarella cheese
Butter
Mustard
1 tsp poppy seeds
8 tinfoil squares
1. Mix three parts butter to one part mustard. (I usually do about 1/4 cup of butter and 1tbls mustard. You can add more mustard to your taste) Add poppy seeds and stir.
2. Spread mixture on top section of Kaiser roll.
3. Layer bottom section of roll with name slice, then mozzarella cheese.
4. Close sandwich and wrap in one piece of tinfoil. Do this for all eight rolls.
5. Toss into a 350° preheated oven for 15 minutes.
Serve and enjoy.
And finally, a third quick and easy recipe. This is a breakfast one, but I serve it any time of day.
Ham and Potato Scramble
1 ham slice per person, cubed (I use a piece of ham that is roughly the size of a cell phone😊)
Trimmed Ham fat
1 small russet potato per person, peeled and cubed
3 or 4 green onions or 1 leek.
****(Use your judgment, it really depends on the amount of people you are feeding, think 1onion = 2 people. I prefer the understated taste of a leek. Use the white part at about 1inch sliced per person)****
1 large green pepper, seeded and chopped
1 egg scrambled per person
Salt and pepper to taste
1.In a large non-stick skillet, heat your ham and ham fat over low heat. When browned, remove the ham, keeping the fat in the pan.
2. Add your cubed potatoes to the fat in pan, (and olive oil if needed). Brown the potatoes. The ham fat adds a great taste to the potatoes. Remove the potatoes.
3. Throw in your onion and green pepper. Santee until just soft.
4. Add your potatoes and ham back to the pan.
5. Make little "wells" in the ham and potato mixture and pour your scrambled egg mixture into them.
6. When eggs start to set, stir them into the whole mixture so they finish cooking through.
***Eggs should cook quickly, so pay attention. You don't want to burn anything.
Serve and enjoy!
Now, there you go. With these three recipes, your family should never pick up on the fact that they are still eating Holiday ham leftovers!
Until next time,
Deborah E
"Thank you".... residents of the community for paying higher property taxes so my children could go to school for free, get free lunches and grants for college, so I could hang out with chicks, gamble and live unencumbered by responsibility.
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