Hammin' It Up

I’m happy to report that as of today, the last of the Christmas ham is officially gone. Having leftover ham is like having leftover Turkey at Thanksgiving. There are only so many times that you can eat it – even in its various forms – before you want to chuck the whole thing outside to the dog and be done with it.

This year, I had an unusually large ham to contend with. I think it weighed 7 1/2 pounds (about 3 pounds less than my son weighed at birth). I typically don’t buy a ham that large, but when you wait until two days before Christmas, all the reasonable-sized hams have long since been snapped up by smarter shoppers than I.

So, we had a nice Christmas dinner. My son Jason and his wife Sarah drove up from California for the holidays that made the annual dinner even more of a special occasion. The next day, Saturday, we had ham sandwiches for lunch. For dinner that night, I made a ham and broccoli cheddar soup (I’ll share the recipe here at the end) that tasted especially good after we all spent the day in the cold and snow at Brundage Mtn. On Sunday, I made a ham and potato frittata with chopped basil and Parmesan cheese. The frittata turned out of the skillet and onto the platter in one wonderful piece (something that doesn’t always happen when I make frittatas). My husband looked at my frittata skeptically despite the fact I explained to him it was truly a meat and potatoes kind of dish, just in a different form.

Monday night I dragged out the old reliable ham and noodle casserole recipe and that dish lasted us for two nights. I took a break from ham on Wednesday night and fixed steaks and baked potatoes just so we didn’t forget what red meat tasted like. This morning, I used the last of the ham in a scrambled egg and ham breakfast dish and breathed a big sigh of relief. Now if I could only figure out what to do with those three turkeys I have in the freezer…

 

Here’s my recipe for ham and broccoli cheddar soup. I adapted it from a recipe I found in a Taste of Home cookbook.

Ingredients

2 cups of cubed peeled potatoes

1 cup of cauliflower florets

1 cup of broccoli florets

1 small onion, finely diced

4 cups of vegetable broth

2 1/2 cups cubed cooked ham

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 tsp salt

Dash of nutmeg

1/2 to 1 cup of mashed potatoes (either leftover mashed or instant potato flakes)

In a saucepan, cook the potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli and onion in the vegetable broth until tender. Stir in the milk, ham, cheese, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Heat through. Stir in the leftover mashed potatoes or potato flakes and simmer for 5-10 minutes until the soup is as thick as you want it.  Yields 6-8 servings