Easy tropical ham

Target had tropical fruit in juice on clearance for half price. It's two different varieties of papaya and pineapple. With a tropical tortoise in the house and a child who adores fruit, I bought them.

ALL.

My mother-in-law brought a big old ham steak with the bone. I slapped it in the cast iron skillet and poured a can of the fruit on top. Sprinkled a pinch of ground cloves and here we are:

Road trip!

Friday morning at 5:30 am, we headed into the dark for our first road trip in our Nissan.

We started out with dark chocolate covered espresso beans for the grown ups and baby carrots and sesame sticks for the child. The types of food allowed in the Nissan... Is limited.

We drove to the suburbs of Baltimore where we met my college roommate and her young boys for a delightful breakfast of popovers, blueberry muffins, fruit, eggs and bacon fresh from the butcher.

From there we headed into DC where we headed down to the Mall (no cherry blossoms yet) and bought the child ice cream from a food truck (and I got an egg roll).

Dinner was Salai Thai. My daughter loved their pineapple chicken last time since it came in a pineapple... And so she requested a return visit. Our party had a tofu appetizer that was quite melt-in-your mouth.

I had scallops and I don't remember the sauce/preparation. They were spicy in a big way, which was sooo good, but the scallops themselves were not as tender as I had hoped yet not tough either.

We had brought our host food gifts of zaatar bread, Tunisian Harissa and chocolate halawa. I believe he enjoyed them.

In the morning we went to PAUL. Spoke some French, ate lots of pastry.

Our final meal in DC was pitas at Cava Mezza grill near the DC City Target. Fun stuff-- organic food locally sourced.

On the way home we stopped at Cracker Barrel where I did something crazy-- I got the sampler platter instead of one of my favorites. This allowed me to try the chicken and dumplings, ham AND meatloaf. Surprisingly I liked the ham best and the meatloaf, while perfectly adequate, didn't hit the spot. Then I had a molasses sundae. That was fun.

Daughter had the chocolate coca cola cake. That was one of the best chocolate cakes I've ever eaten.

Fried ham and cheese

I heated some ham in the skillet and fried a tortilla shell in a little coconut oil before stuffing it with the ham, cheddar and ranch dressing and topping with another tortilla shell to make a quesadilla style sandwich.

"Mommy, I want a sandwich."

My daughter requested a sandwich. A sandwich is not your run of the mill item in this house. I try to oblige.

The pasta is leftover pesto tortellini.

The fruit is something from the Easton Farmer's market. It has a skin like a peach, is shaped like a small gourd and has white interior. Daughter loves them IF I peel the fuzzy peach-style skin off them. They also have a pit like a peach. Last time, she picked something similar, but it had an orange interior and the texture and flavor of a plum.

The sandwich is my homemade honey oat bread, with a slice of cucumber, two slices of deli counter ham (another oddity in this house) and a squirt of Goddess dressing.

Green-laden ham sandwiches

Today's sandwiches made me wish I had more of everything for another round, but I don't. Sad.

-Archer Farm Seven Grain bread
-a hearty layer of Lost Gourmet's kale-cream cheese- zucchini dip
- lettuce, sorrel and spinach from the garden
- the last of the homemade pickles
- a handful of the market pantry six blend Italian cheese
- market pantry applewood ham slices

That was practically a Target/garden sandwich.

Sandwiches and salad

Got an applewood smoked ham quarter for $3 at Target. It's certainly not a quality ham or a big ham, but it's sliced for sandwiches and has 1.66 pounds. I heated it with water in the crock pot.

We made sandwiches on bagels from NY Bagel & Deli in the 25th Street shopping plaza, leftover mozzarella from Calandra's in Nazareth, and that kale-zucchini-cream cheese dip from Lost Gourmet at the Pheonixville Farmers Market yesterday.

We served with an Asian style salad that began life as a Fresh Express Very Veggie with some greens and sorrel from my garden, dried peas, dried pineapple, cucumber and Newman's Own Ginger Sesame dressing.

Pasta two times

Last night, we had some pasta, with plain tomato sauce, herbs from the garden (oregano, lots of basil), fresh tomato, crumbled Morningstar vegetarian breakfast patties and romano from Calandra's Italian cheeses.

Today for lunch, I was feeling like a needed a hearty meal, so I fried some honey ham, tore it, and dropped the leftover noodles in the frying pan with the ham. As it heated, I added shredded gruyere. Perfect for this rainy day.

Egg sandwiches

Yesterday morning I went for blood work. I came home and had breakfast with a neighbor: half-caff coffee, cheerios with skim milk, cranberry juice and grapes.

Because I had started the day with a fast, I was starved by noon, so I made my husband and I egg sandwiches with ham, gouda, and egg on a bagel. With Girl Scout Cookies from the freezer for dessert.

Farm Fresh Cream Sauce

I didn't go to the grocery store yet, in part because the tire on the car exploded and in other part because we have so many random items in this house that I like the challenge of using what we've got.

This morning I was thinking vegetables rolled in cold cuts. But then I decided on pasta for dinner. We have some tri-color rotini, and some lunchmeat ham my mother-in-law brought last week. I thought I could combine those. We also have some raw milk that's a week old and we always have plenty of butter.

Ingredients:
- Tri-color rotini
- Leftover cold cut ham
- About 4 tablespoons butter
- About 1 teaspoon organic four color pepper
- 1 cup raw milk
- 2 tablespoons unbleached white flour
- dash nutmeg
- 3/4 teaspoon fresh dill
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
- 2 cups peas

So I made the rotini.

In my Le Creuset skillet, I started with with a pat of butter and some four color peppercorn. I tossed all the ham into the skillet, heated over medium and fried both sides. I removed the ham from the skillet and put it on a cutting board. I added two tablespoons of butter to the skillet, reducing heat to low. Stirring constantly, I added the butter.

The base of this recipe came from the Betty Crocker 25th Anniversary Cookbook.

This is probably the first time my flour-butter base for the cream sauce actually came out as liquid and not as a lump. I think it's because of the even heating in the cast iron skillet. After stirring it until bubbly, I removed the skillet from the heat and added the milk. Stirred until everything melted and mixed together.

I returned the skillet to the heat, added the rest of the herbs (dill, garlic salt, remaining pepper, nutmeg) and stirred constantly as it thickened. When it got almost bubbly and a nice consistency, I added the peas and the ham and stirred until everything was warm.

Then I added the rotini, and stirred together.

My stirring technique for this involved a wide plastic turner where I scraped back and forth across the skillet.

It was my best cream sauce ever.

Update

It may look like we've been slacking off in the food department, and I guess in many ways that's true.

Sunday, before we went to Build-A-Bear, I made the family open-faced little cracker sandwiches as an early lunch. Each vegetable cracker from Wegmans had a slice of deli ham and a hunk of extra-sharp cheddar. Very popular around here.

For dinner, we ended up going for an early dinner at Mex Tex Trio. For some reason, every time I eat there I crave Mexican for days until we go back and eat again. So much for scheduling family eating out nights. My husband and I both had burritos con mole and our daughter ate her weight in their salsa and had a chicken burrito.

For breakfast yesterday, my daughter and I had leftover Fred the Bread and Morningstar Vegetarian sausage patties. For lunch, my husband and I had leftover Mexican and I made our daughter nachos-- half a can of black beans, some shredded cheddar and some mango salsa also from Wegmans.

For dinner my husband made cheese ravioli with red sauce.

And for breakfast, my daughter requested something hot and I'm not feeling like a short order cook so I thought I could compensate for lack of vegetables and serve Veggie Patch Broccoli Cheese Bites for breakfast. Why not? They're hot.

Daddy Mac

My husband got a craving for mac and cheese while I was at work and whipped this up, which was delicious. He used cheddar, some penne regate, and some bits of ham though if you want the recipe, you'd need to ask him. He ALWAYS makes enough for an army, so we've been eating it for days...

Daddy's omelette

For dinner the other night, Daddy made a leftover omelette with spinach and tator tots. He had a holiday party where he made a cheese platter, so he used the leftover cheddar and some ham his boss gave him to make an awesome omelette...

Ravioli with gouda and broccoli

This recipe was designed to use up holiday leftovers from my husband's work party, primarily ham and some smoked gouda.

I started with some steam-in-the-bag just picked broccoli cuts from Wegmans, which honestly, disappointed me a tad because of the number of stems in the bag. With those prepared and about 12 large cheese ravioli cooking, I got my Le Creuset skillet and began concocting a sauce.

First, I melted four tablespoons butter, then added the broccoli, hearty sprinkles of garlic pepper, and sprinkled breadcrumbs over the broccoli. I let that sizzle a few minutes (like two). I added about 3/4 cup soy milk and 1 heaping teaspoon flour, working very carefully to keep the flour away from the broccoli until I got the butter milk and flour incorporated. I added about 3/4 cup tiny pieces of ham. Then I also added about 1/4 cup of small chunks of gouda. After that melted, I set the sauce aside and, with drippings still in the pan, added about two teaspoons extra virgin olive oil to the skillet. Then I fried the ravioli over low heat and sprinkled them with another 1/2 cup finely grated smoked gouda.

Then I returned the sauce to the pan, stirred it all up, and added another 1/4 cup finely grated smoked gouda. And served. It was fantastic.

The problem with a strict budget

A strict budget works for the purse strings, but no so much if you like variety. I have eaten enough ham and cheese for a lifetime. I have $50 left in my grocery budget for the month. We may be repeating the infamous $20 Aldi trips, especially the way this tribe's been eating lately.

Breakfast today: Leftover Bob's Red Mill cereal with jelly for the child and husband

Morning snack: My daughter wanted some vanilla yogurt (I buy only the 32 ounce containers) and leftover raspberries from my dinner party. I had my breakfast: the final serving of Bob's with the wine sauce from the raspberries.

Lunch: leftover peaches from yesterday and omelets of the leftover ham, some cheddar and a taste of gruyère with the ham heated and browned in butter and garlic pepper. So good we all wanted more.

Dessert: homemade sticky buns with super amounts of raisins and pecans (from the freezer)

For dinner, I need to make something chock full of vegetables as we've had lots of fruit and grain... Maybe a salad with vegetarian meat? Or bacon? I bought bacon (hard to believe, me, bacon) because I'd been reading about French potato casseroles... Mmmmm...

Fancy Dinner with Mark and Julie

Last night, my husband confirmed that our friends Mark and Julie would be coming for dinner... tonight. So, with 24 hours to prepare, I had a dinner party to whip up. This would mark the fourth time this week we went to the grocery store, and I believe our grocery total for the month is about $200 (and it's not even the 15th yet) and we spent $25 on eating out (pizza one night). If I try really hard, I can survive the next two weeks without hitting the store again. And be on budget...

My husband had mentioned croque monsieur to our guests, so they were interested. And I figured it was scrumptious last night so it would be yummy again. And I thought I'd get some raspberries and make some Vouvray-lavender honey sauce to complement them. And a prepackaged salad. A baguette. And voilà, simple multi-course dinner.

And the guests said they'd bring dessert.

I had enough cheesy bread left to make a couple small sandwiches. I needed a little more of everything, so I headed to Wegmans. I spent about $42, way over what I wanted to but I bought double what I intended. Ham, 1 lb., $6. Gruyère, 1/2 pound, $6. smoked gouda, $5. baguette, $2. batard, $2. The salads looked awful, so I opted for a hunk of La Chaume cheese instead ($5). If I couldn't whip up a salad, I'd serve a cheese platter. Two quarts of raspberries, $10. Maille imported French dijon mustard, $4. And my daughter insisted on petit ecolier cookies, $4. Yes, I caved. They're French and dark chocolate.

My husband agreed to stop on his way home for salad. Mark and Julie would get a cake.

Plus a bottle of wine I had on hand means I made dinner for five for $5o. Not so bad...

The recipe for fruit salad with white wine-honey sauce can be found under the "French" link and probably under "Vouvray" too. I followed those basic instructions, cut back the sugar and used only raspberries.

I prepped the sandwiches so they just needed to bake. I got 11 or 12 sandwiches. But my cheese sauce wouldn't thicken so they were a tad dry. I needed another tablespoon flour, but ran out of time.

My daughter set the table with the Royal Doulton Isabella. We got out the silver. We even went to the rose bush and picked the first buds of the spring for a centerpiece. We filled the princess house glasses with water and when the guests arrived there was Vouvray for everyone.

Two types of bread were on the table.
First course: raspberries
Second course: croque monsieur
Third course: Dole Spring Fling Salad with almonds and berry vinagrette dressing
Fourth course: International Cheese Flight of Swiss gruyère, German smoked gouda, French Chaume and New York Extra Sharp Cheddar (from Aldi no less!)
Fifth course: (here's where the courses get funky, order wise) chartreuse
Sixth course: decaf with coffee mate Parisian Almond Cream creamer and strawberry shortcake torte

Full bellies, happy bellies. Very sleepy grown ups...

Croque Monsieur

I've been dying for Croque Monsieur for days... but it's not an easy thing to solve a craving like this... For one, buying the proper cheese can be very expensive. In this case, $6-plus at the Giant. For a tiny hunk of Gruyère.

So, you economize where you can.

I based my croque monsieur on Ina Garten's recipe in Barefoot in Paris, but where she uses two cheeses, I used four. Sounds fancy, but really, it was an attempt to keep the gruyère from making my daughter turn up her nose, and an attempt to cheapen the overall cost of the sandwich.

Step one:

I sliced 12 slices of homemade cheesy bread that I had thawed from the freezer. I arranged them on a very large cookie sheet. In an oven preheated to 400, I toasted each side of the bread for five minutes.

Ingredients for the sauce: 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, 1 tablespoon flour, 1/2 cup light cream, 1/2 cup soy milk, 1/2 teaspoon freshly-ground coarse sea salt (from Aldi), 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground four-color pepper, pinch nutmeg, 1/8 cup grated asiago (also from Aldi), 1/8 cup grated parmesan (Aldi), 1/8 cup grated gruyère, and 1/8 cup grated smoked gouda.

Melt butter over low heat, stir in flour and stir with wooden spoon for two minutes. Heat milk and add, slowly, whisking constantly until sauce thickens. Remove pan from heat and add other ingredients. Set aside.

Step two:

Take toasted bread and if desired, spread dijon mustard on one side. I skipped this as my husband hates mustard.

Ingredients for the middle: ham slices (I used tavern ham, one long slice per sandwich. It used more than 1/4 a pound but not 1/2 pound), a slice of smoked gouda for each sandwich, and slightly more than 1/4 cup grated gruyère. Go crazy with the cheese if you wish, but I can't afford it.

Method: On one side of the bread, fold a slice of ham, then add the gouda. I then added a thin layer of sauce and put the second side of the bread on. Smother the top of the sandwich with sauce, I used close to two tablespoons for each of my little sandwiches. Then sprinkle the gruyère on top.

Bake five minutes in the oven. Then, turn on the broiler and broil three to five minutes until bubbly and golden brown.

Easter Dinner Leftovers

Holidays at the in-laws are usually hit or miss. Usually it's a hit, but sometimes it's a big old miss. This year was a hit. For the traditional favorites we had ham and dandelion and hot bacon dressing. We also had my mother-in-law's corn bake, which is a recipe she got in high school I believe and it's a cross between corn bread and corn pudding. But I filled up on the "fried" chicken and the broccoli slaw. The broccoli slaw is very similar to the bok choy salad recipe with ramen noodles that Terri gave us when we all worked in the public information office at Lafayette College. My mother-in-law uses boneless, skinless chicken and cooks it before she breads and fries it. It's very yummy.And Lee's beans in a big, old crockpot. I don't eat those. It's a very meaty variation of baked beans.

But of course, Easter wouldn't be easter with Esther's homemade chocolate. She makes strawberry creams, coconut creams, peanut butter eggs, white chocolate/krispie "deviled eggs," chocolate covered marshmellows, and this year, funky bird's nests and a lamb cake. And there was Memmy's fabulous pumpkin custard and a lemon pie.

I'll have to post some recipes. I have the one for corn bake.

Omelets

I've finally caught the plague the rest of the family has been carrying around for two weeks. And we had a snow storm. So, for dinner tonight, I made ham-cheddar-mozzarella-broccoli omelets and my husband made homemade french fries.

We went to Sam's Club last night and spent about $50, our first grocery expenditure for March. 4 pounds of cheddar, 2 lbs of colby jack, 18 Egglands Best eggs, Cool Ranch Doritoes, tortilla chips, and Puffs plus... Pet supplies... but that's an additional $20. Oh! And multigrain crackers. I think that's the grand tally. No... wait... I also bought a 12-pack of Dannon Natural Yogurt. (As opposed to unnatural yogurt.)

Amazing Turkey Sandwiches and Cauliflower

I nabbed this recipe from Parenting magazine and made my own adjustments, as you could expect. I love grilled cheese sandwiches. My mother was a horrible cook, but she had worked in a diner for many years so she can make two things well: omelettes and grilled cheese.

I learned some of her secrets and can also make a mean grilled cheese, but my mother's remains a comfort food to this day. All she has to say is, "Ange, you want a grilled cheese?" and I'm at the table, whether I'm hungry or not.

 I also love hot turkey sandwiches with apples and had a craving for one several weeks ago that I never got the chance to indulge. As you may have noticed, we rarely use deli meats in this house. I try to choose foods that are as nutritional dense as possible and lunch meats, in my opinion, are too processed.

So I decided to buy some turkey breast and adapt Parenting's Honey Ham and Cheese...

The original Honey Ham and Cheese

2 TBS grated cheese

2 slices bread 

1 thin slice deli ham

2 tsp unsalted butter

1 TBS honey

1. Sprinkle grated cheese on one slice of bread and top with ham. Top with second slice of bread.

2. In small skillet, melt half the butter over medium heat. Add the sandwich and cook about three minutes, pressing down with a spatula. Flip and add remaining butter to skillet. Cook another two minutes.

3. Drizzle with half the honey and let cook another minute. Flip once more, coat with the rest of the honey. Cut into quarters.

Now my version: 

Angel's Amazing Turkey Sandwiches 

For one sandwich: 

2 slices Flax and Fiber bread 

margarine 

about 1/4 cup grated extra sharp Wisconsin cheddar 

2 hearty slices turkey breast 

1 teaspoon olive oil

Several thin slices apple 

1 TBS honey

1. Slice each piece of bread in half. And apply thin layer of margarine to one side of each portion.

2. In skillet, warm very thin layer of oil. Place two of the halves in the pan. (Butter side down.) But not the 'lids.'

3. Sprinkle on some cheese, then apple, more cheese, then one slice of turkey folded, the remainder of the cheese and put lid on.

4. Cook, pressing with spatula. Don't let it get too brown. When almost done, add a slight amount of honey on top of each and flip. As that side cooks, add honey to other side (not too much) and flip again. The honey will burn very quickly so be careful.

Now, to prepare the cauliflower,  I removed the sandwiches and kept them in the oven so they wouldn't get cold. I microwaved a small bag of cauliflower and drained. I wiped the skillet clean, but didn't wash it. I added some margarine and olive oil and put the heat on medium high. I tossed in the cauliflower, salted it slightly, added a few drops of honey, and cooked until it got a tad yellowy with some brown spots. Then I sprinkled with the remaining dregs of cheese. Probably two tablespoons for the whole bag.