Ham and so on

The whole family loves ham, and there is something about the smell of ham baking in the oven on a cold day that is magical.  Of course, it stays cool in Wisconsin a lot longer than in other places, and I fixed this a month or so ago - sorry again for the delay, it has been a crazy upside-down spring around here.  So, for the first night we had ham, baked potatoes, bread and salad.  I hardly ever take pictures of the salad, but we eat it almost every night.  We buy the big boxes of organic mixed greens at the grocery store when we can't get it locally, and we will start buying it locally again very soon!  Our local grocery stores don't carry it in the big boxes and the small bags are so expensive, but since my husband works in Madison, he stops at a grocery store that is right across from his office, and they carry it.  I have often noticed that I can buy bulk so much cheaper in bigger cities.  So - when you are taking an outing to a larger city - stock up!  I buy rice, olive oil, salad and sometimes cereal there.  Oh - and some really great specialty cheeses.  We have some great cheeses at the cheese house in town here, but they have some really great ones in Madison from all kinds of wonderful cheese makers from Wisconsin.  I highly recommend Crave Brothers (Petit Frere) and any of the Carr Valley cheddars.  Mmmm.  There are not cheese that you just eat.  They are cheeses that you savor in small amounts.  They are too expensive to do otherwise, but make a great (and healthy!) treat. 

I am very lazy about making hams.  I usually stick them in my dutch oven (still frozen if I haven't been organized enough to thaw them out in the fridge first).  Then I turn the oven on to 225 or 250 and let it go for a couple of hours or so.  About an hour and a half before I am ready to serve it,  I turn the oven up to 350 and stick in some potatoes.  I just scrub them, rub them with a bit of butter and stick them in.  Then everything can come out at once.   Easy peasy! This served four adults and two kids and there were still leftovers!

The next day we still had company and so I made fried ham sandwiches for lunch.  This was very easy too.  You slice the ham into 1/4 slices or so and put them into a dry frying pan.  You don't need any additional fat - there is enough on the ham.  Cook at medium heat until warmed through and beginning to brown.  While you are waiting for them to cook, you can slice the bread and toast it (if desired) spread bread with mayo and add some cheese slices - we like muenster or cheddar.  Put the ham slices on top of the cheese, top with some lettuce and you have got a wonderful simple sandwich.

We also fried up some potatoes in another pan.  This was simple too.  I just added some ham fat to the pan, then scooped the leftover baked potatoes out of their skins (and I am sure that you know by now that I made potato skins out of them!) and tossed them in too.  I cooked them until warmed through and starting to get crispy too, on medium-high heat.  This served eight adults and four children for lunch.  And we still had the bone and a little bit of meat left.  So what did I make?  All together now:  SOUP!

I made the U.S. Senate Bean Soup again, with only a couple of modifications.  I just used the ham bone (with attached meat) and trimmings instead of the hock/shank.  I still ended up with about a cup and a half of meat after picking everything apart after simmering it for a couple of hours.  We soon had more company, and this soup served four adults, plus the two kids, and then just the four us for two more meals.  I usually serve it with bread.  Enjoy!

Mmmm. Soup.

This is the first time I have made this particular soup and it is wicked good.  Seriously.  I got 'yums' from my picky eaters (and don't tell them this, but it has lots of veggies in it).  It is called 'U.S. Senate Bean Soup' and I got it from "Joy of Cooking".  It said something about how it has been on the menu at the Senate since dinosaurs roamed the earth.  There is a reason for that.  Gooooooood.  It called for a small ham hock, but there was nothing small about our pig and I have shanks which include the hock.  Another good reason to have an inventory - I was convinced that I had a hock in the freezer and without an inventory I would have been out in the freezing garage cursing and searching through the freezer.

So, I used the pork shank that I had, and after boiling it for a couple of hours I picked off the meat and only added a cup and a half of shredded meat back again.  This left me plenty of meat to work with for future recipes, one of the bones went to my dog with the rest in the freezer for to distract him when we really don't want him around.  Yay!  I also saved the fat off the shank.  I will use it instead of butter (cheaper too!) when I need to saute something and want the ham flavor - potatoes for example.  Keep tuned!

Here is the recipe for the U.S. Senate Bean Soup (slightly adapted from "Joy of Cooking"):

Bring the following to a boil and then reduce to a simmer.  Simmer together for a couple of hours or until meat is very tender and falling off the bone:

7 cups water (I needed 14 cups of water to cover my pork shank -so when the meat and bones were ready to come out I just took out 7 cups of water and then froze it to use when I want to make this soup again - without the hock/shank)

1 small ham hock 

1 1/4 cup white beans (I used navy beans - and they were too pretty not to take a picture of)

Remove ham hock and pick off the meat.  Add back to the pot. Add:

1 large baking potato, peeled and finely diced (I actually used the inside of a baked potato leftover from last night - reserving the skins for potato skins of course!) 

1 large onion (or 2 small ones!), diced

3 medium stalks of celery with leaves, chopped

2 (or more!) cloves of garlic, minced (this means cut up really fine)

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground pepper

Whenever I have more than one thing that needs to be chopped/minced I use my food chopper (as seen in the picture) or my food processor.  It makes it worth washing if I am going to chop a few things with it and it makes the food prep go so much faster.  I have come to the conclusion that I am never going to be one of those people who can slice and dice and make it look effortless - plus they always seem to be able to do it evenly! I have a relation who can and I am always jealous when I see him smoothly cutting up veggies in the kitchen.  He is pretty handy with teeth too - he just opened up his own dentistry practice in Madison.  I, however, have grown to be content with my food chopper and processor along with my mediocre slicing abilities.   

Cook until potato is soft (about 20-30 minutes), then mash with a potato masher to make soup slightly creamy.   Stir in 2 TBL chopped fresh parsley.  I didn't do this, b/c I didn't have any fresh parsley.  Serve with bread.  Yummy!

This would be an easy one to do in the crock pot too.  I would put the beans and hock/shank in the crock pot all day on low, and then add the other ingredients 20-30 minutes before I wanted to eat.  Happy cooking!