Split Pea Soup / Leftover Ham

When I bake a ham, there are always lots of leftovers. I always make sure I dice up a bunch of the ham and freeze it in two cup portions, roughly. I don't actually measure. I fill a few sandwich bags of diced ham and then put each sandwich bag in a gallon freezer bag. This has several advantages. First, it's cheaper to use a few sandwich bags and one freezer bag rather than a bunch of freezer bags. Plus, it's easier to keep track of how much ham I have left in the freezer because I see my stash of ham each time I use some.

Some of the ham I just pull out a bit and throw in scrambled eggs after defrosting. But most of it ends up in split pea or bean soup.

Split pea soup is so easy, because you don't need to pre-soak the beans. You can use water or chicken broth. Rinse and sort through them, although I personally have never seen anything but split peas in any of mine! A bag (pound) of split peas, 8 cups of broth or water, a few stalks of sliced celery, a diced carrot, a diced onion, a clove or two of garlic minced up, a cup or two of diced ham, and some black pepper. Bring to a simmer and cook until the peas are tender, about an hour and a half. You can mash them together with a handheld immersion blender or do it the lazy way like I do, and just let them cook another half hour or so.

Grilled Cheese without the Butter

One of my favorite dinners is grilled cheese sandwiches and soup. I personally prefer my grilled cheese with a mixture of cheese, Jack and Cheddar being my favorite. I also like to pry it apart and put a bit of sweet pickle relish in the sandwich. Mmmm! Or to serve some sliced bread and butter pickles next to it, taking a bite of each.

My kids think a grilled cheese sandwich has to be on white bread with American cheese. I've converted them to sliced sourdough bread, infinitely better than plain white sandwich bread. I'm still working on the cheeses. My eldest likes the cheese mix but prefers Colby. Lots of it. She also likes quesadillas made with Colby. My youngest likes just the thinnest slice of some mild cheese, preferably American, but the main point being "not too much."

So dinner tonight was some split pea soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. We had some company over and my friend is trying to watch the old diet. Soup was fine but the grilled cheese was questionable. While we were talking before dinner, I remembered that my ex-MIL, whom I learned a tremendous amount of good recipes from, used to make toast for dinner by taking sliced sourdough bread and brushing it lightly with olive oil and then sprinkling some crushed oregano on it and broiling it. So we took that idea and merged it with the grilled cheese. We brushed the slices of bread with olive oil instead of spreading butter on them. We sprinkled a bit of oregano and rosemary on the bread, after putting some cheese between the slices. And then we broiled the sandwich rather than frying it on my griddle. We overdid the herbs a bit but in general it was a very satisfying sandwich! Olive oil is generally considered to be healthier than butter. (I don't even deal with margarine, personally. No taste. I'd rather have dry toast! And since "they" recently have been dissing margarine for various health reasons I feel totally justified in shunning it on the basis of taste for all these years.) But current thinking says olive oil is healthier than butter. You could play around with some different cheeses, maybe a little Parmesan mixed with something: sort of the grown-up grilled cheese. But the olive oil/baking idea is a definite win!

Grandma Alice's Chicken

Did an old favorite tonight but kicked it up a notch in the flavor department.

chicken parts
garlic salt
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chicken broth

Combine the flour, salt, pepper, and paprika in a shallow bowl. Rinse and dry the chicken. Sprinkle each piece with garlic salt then roll in the flour mixture. Place the chicken skin side down in a baking dish, pour 1/2 cup chicken broth in, and bake at 400 for 30 minutes. Turn the chicken pieces over (skin side UP), add the other 1/2 cup chicken broth, and bake another 30 minutes.

Cream of Broccoli Soup

The days suddenly turned from spring-like to rainy and windy again, as they do so often after a first little false-spring weather that tricked all the daffodils into coming up! The blossoms are all out on my fruit trees and do look beautiful against the contrasting dark grey skies! But we went from barbecues and potato salad back to soups and stew weather!

Cream of Broccoli Soup. I combined a few recipes last night to make this delicious soup. My eldest called it a 3-star favorite! I put 4 cups chicken broth, 1.5 cups water, a chopped onion, and two 10 oz packages of frozen chopped broccoli in a pot. I was, as is typical, basically combining two different recipes because they each had intriguing parts to me. The first recipe called for adding diced potatoes and then simmering for an hour! I didn't have that much time. The second recipe called for 1/3 cup of oatmeal as the thickener, so I went with that. I also added some nutmeg and a bit of cayenne pepper and some regular black pepper as well. Brought this all to a simmer and cooked for about 15 minutes. I used my hand-immersion mixer thingy (what are those called?) to blend the soup together. Much easier than pouring hot soup into a blender! I then added a cup of half and half and let it warm up. Definitely a winner! If you wanted to cut down on the fat, add milk instead. Or try it without adding anything.

For anyone who's curious, the first recipe also called for satueeing the onion in a bit of olive oil, which I skipped and don't think it mattered much. It also called for all water and a bouillon cube but I try to avoid the high salt stuff. But if you're out of chicken broth, go for it! Both recipes called for fresh broccoli, which would probably make this soup even better.

Sauteed potatoes

Sauteed potatoes go great with almost any meat for dinner. Or serve them with eggs for breakfast, of course! Potatoes are on sale around here, .99 for a 10 pound bag of Russets. For dinner yesterday I made these to go with some barbecued flank steak.

Peel potatoes. Cut into 1/2" slices, then cut those into 1/2" pieces (so you end up with 1/2" square "sticks") then turn them sideways and cut into 1/2" pieces. It's a fast easy way to dice them.

Heat up a bit of oil and butter in a skillet (half of each). Put the potatoes in and stir up a bit to coat, then let them cook 5 minutes or so on medium heat until beginning to brown. Turn them, sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper and let brown. Keep turning them until they're as brown as you like them. (We like them a bit crisp.) Goes great with just about any meat or for breakfast, of course. Add some diced onions if you'd like, although they're quite good plain.

Ellen

Brown Sugar Chicken

Playing with bone-in chicken breasts some more last night. I had seen a recipe on a cooking newsgroup that people were raving about and decided to try it. Very simple. I wouldn't rave about them but they were good and easy.

Put the chicken breasts skin side up in a pan. Sprinkle with garlic powder and/or garlic salt depending on your salt concerns and love of garlic! Sprinkle with brown sugar. Bake at 375 for an hour.

Cheeseburger Soup

Cheeseburger Soup. Here's what I made last night, a slight variation on a recipe I'd gotten off a frugal newsgroup. I didn't put the mushrooms in last night because I didn't have any.

1/2-1 pound of ground beef (depending on how filling you want it to be!)
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
8 ounces mushrooms, cleaned and sliced (optional)

3-4 cups chicken or beef broth
2-3 potatoes, peeled and diced
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried parsley
salt and pepper to taste

2 Tbs butter
1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cups milk

8 ounces American cheese, cubed

1/4 cup sour cream (optional)

Brown the ground beef. Add the onion and cook until soft. Drain any fat off. Add the carrots, celery, and garlic and cook about 5-10 minutes, then add the broth, potatoes, and seasonings. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook 20 minutes or so. Timing's not essential as long as the vegetables are cooked!

Make a white sauce. Melt the butter, slowly add the flour, stirring constantly and cook 2 minutes over medium low heat. Slowly whisk in the milk, stirring constantly. Turn the heat up and simmer a few minutes until thick. Stir into the soup. Add the cheese and stir until melted. Just before serving, stir in the sour cream if using.

Goes great with biscuits or crackers!

Garlic Pizza with White Sauce

I love those garlic pizzas with a white sauce. I finally made one yesterday, after seeing a recipe in a Cooking Light newsletter. Since we were going to an "adult" dinner (an Oscar's party my friends were hosting), I made it with spinach, caramelized onions, and bacon on top.

The pizza crust was nothing special, other than I did put chopped garlic in the dough. And I did let it rise twice because I got a last minute dinner invitation after I'd started the first rise. I left it out to rise when I left and when I got back, punched it down, covered it, and put it in the frig overnight. After a second rise, I pushed and rolled it into a roughly 12 " circle and then made a rim around the edge to hold the sauce in.

The garlic sauce is basically a thick white sauce with garlic: Saute a few cloves minced garlic in 1 Tbs of butter. Add 3 Tbs of flour and cook for a few minutes, while stirring. Slowly add 1 cup of milk, whisking together so it's not lumpy. Bring to a simmer and cook 5 minutes, stirring almost constantly.

The toppings could be anything you like of course. I did spinach, bacon, and caramelized onions with Parmesan cheese on top. Cook up a few slices of bacon, then chop or crumble it up and set aside. Leave just a tablespoon of the drippings in the pan and cook some (10 ounces?) chopped spinach for a few minutes, until wilted. Set aside. Put two sliced onions in the same pan. I added a bit more oil as the spinach had absorbed all the drippings. It would be better if I'd saved the earlier drippings and used that but I hadn't... Anyway, cook the onions slowly until browned, about 10-15 minutes. In the meantime, grate a bunch of Parmesan, about 1 cup total.

Take your pizza crust and spread the garlic sauce on it. Add the onions and spinach and bake at 475 for 20 minutes. Add the bacon and Parmesan and cook another 5 minutes.