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Mon 28 Apr, 2003 07:54 pm
So, yeah, I did buy the ham; and, yes, I did know that I was cooking for only the two of us. We've had some variation of ham every day for the the past week and it's suppertime again tonight.
I was at the SPCA rummage sale today and added to my collection of cookbooks: The Good Housekeeping 7th Edition from 1944. It's by no means valuable but I did learn these lessons from the Business Housekeeper section:
---Plan the 7 dinners for the following week on Friday night.
---If you don't have time to shop each night on your way home, leave the order with your grocer in the morning. Perhaps he can have it ready for you to pick up on your way home or maybe it can be delivered to a neighbor.
---Keep you pantry stocked with quick-to-use foods such as canned tongue and codfish cakes; and
---Have griddle-cake mixes on hand for hurry-up breads.
And, from another section of the book, was this:
One way to refresh your guests during an afternoon of bridge without facing a lot of dishes afterwards is to invite them to come at 1:30 pm or a little later for "Dessert Bridge."
Any creative ideas on dealing with our left-over ham? Extra points given for the writer who originally wrote the headline. -realjohnboy-
Well, we had THE LAST OF THE ham in our potato soup this evening. On Saturday I made pizza with little chunks of ham sauteed with tomatoes, garlic & artichokes. We've had ham with eggs more than once for breakfast, ham dinner leftovers and ham sandwiches.
Thank God it's finally gone!
When we're sick of the ham, I prepare some quiche and freeze. Broccoli and ham quiche, asparagus and ham, etc., etc. ... freeze. Thaw for brunch or take to work for lunch.
So tonight I had prosciutto and butter and shallots and lots of peas and parmigiano reggiano and a whole bunch of broken up linguini, cooked, finished with a swath of half and half, and being single, have a whole bowl full of it left over.
McKenzie, we saw you appear for mere seconds yesterday in the Art Chat forum...but there was some A2K glitch at that time...the site was really slow and weird for about ten minutes. Anyway, you would have been welcome if you hadn't been shunted off by technovectors.
Yeah, I would freeze it and wait until you crave it again. All the above suggestions sound good too. You might try using it in a Chinese-style dish as well, noodle or rice, for a change.
If your ham has a bone boil it for soup stock--or freeze the bone and boil it later.
I'm a bit believer in serving ham for New Year's dinner. (The pig is the only animal who roots forward--chickens, cows, ducks all graze backwards creating inferior omens.
I freeze chunks of the ham for use in pea soup, lentil soup, bean soup, chunked in special potatoes. Thanks to the freezer, I'm in charge, not the festive ham.
I believe your headline was a quote from Dorothy Parker.
Eternity = Dorothy Parker in a gin factory...but seriously folks...isn't the best part of a ham the crappy jokes?
Ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham,
ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, ham, baked beans and ham. That doesn't have much ham in it.
Sounds familiar. Our three kids decided they didn't like ham after we served it, though they always did before. Argh.
There's lots of ways to use it up.
Ham & eggs
Ham & cheese sandwiches (cold or grilled)
Ham salad
Scalloped potatoes & ham
Ham steaks
Chefs or Cobb salad
If it was a bone in ham, the bone can be used to make awesome soups or bean stews, such as:
Split Pea
Cajun Red Beans & Rice
Cassoulet
You can also puree ham with a little mayo and onion to make ham dip, though it is basically a baby-food version of ham salad.
My wife's family is West Indian, and they traditionally bought a bone-in ham at Christmas, and wrapped it in roti dough, baked it, and it is delicious, even as leftovers. I thought of doing it in brioche, but haven't tried yet. The dish involved a cooked ham, so maybe to adapt it...some store-bought or homemade pizza dough or puff pastry, dice up the ham, and make pockets (or mini calzone, which is more accurate) with some veggies and cheese, which would freeze and bake well from frozen.
I was a bit miffed when this topic was moved from General to Food & Drink. I intended the ham to be an entree into the way things were back in 1944. The Business Housekeeper was evidently an early term for what later became The Working Woman and subsequently the Career Woman.
And I was amused by the notion of the grocer making home deliveries, etc.
Anyway, thanks for your responses. I think we'll freeze the sucker.
Irma Rombaurer was, of course, the author of The Joy of Cooking, reputedly the best selling cookbook ever. I have the 1975 edition as well as a 1953 edition. What's cool about buying old cookbooks is that they often have scraps of paper tucked inside with recipes that the owner of the book had gleaned from other sources, written out in long-hand.
I do think that the headline belongs to Dorothy Parker, with Ms Rombaurer perhaps appropriating it later. It certainly sounds like Parker, but I can't cite any reference. -rjb-
realjohnboy, as a humble moderator of the food and drink column, I would LOVE to see a thread about old cookbooks, and how things were in 1944....may even post some Gloria Vanderbilt recipes myself (have the original edition with illustrations by Andy Warhol), or old Craig Claiborne (several NY Times cookbook editions...the possibilities are endless, please carry on, cuz if you don't , I will
Grocers still home deliver. Although Peapod bit the dust, Safeway will deliver, you simply order online and pay a small fee.
I've never used it - I like to pick stuff out myself, but it would be very handy if you were homebound.
My mom has her groceries delivered. (She's blind, and lives in an assisted living community.) They even put stuff in the refrigerator for her!
In Toronto, we have
www.grocerygateway.com, and when I do large functions, they have been a lifesaver.
Are you people referring to hams you´d bought for Christmas?
Or is Easter a big ham time in the States?
Both Christmas and Easter are "big ham times" in the States. Because those days tend to be busy for families, you can simply heat and eat a ham (at least the storebought varieties). No real cooking involved.
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