Ham it up!

Pork is one of my favorite meats.  It’s so versatile.  From sausage to bacon, ribs to tenderloin, steaks to chops, there’s so many cuts and flavors to get out of one animal.  You can go sweet, spicy or savory with it, all ways to let it’s natural flavor distinctly shine.  There’s so much to do with it!

So last week when we bought a pre-sliced ham, I was already organizing in my head all the ways we could eat it and not get tired of it.  For more ideas I consulted my food bible (better known as The Joy of Cooking) and stumbled upon an entire chapter of sauces, glazes, rubs, and marinades.  You will be hearing more from this chapter as the year progresses, I’ve already promised myself to do more exploring there.

My husband (my culinary guinea pig) recently has discovered bourbon, and this recipe jumped off the page at me.  It takes no time at all to make, and this led to my first ever 10-minute dinner that didn’t consist of leftovers.  While you’re making this glaze, heat up your ham steaks (though this also goes well over any pork or chicken) and throw a couple potatoes into the microwave, poked and wrapped in wet paper towels for about six minutes, and dinner is ready.

Bourbon Glaze (from Joy of Cooking)

• 1/2 cup dry red wine
• 1 cup bourbon
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 6 cloves of garlic, smashed
• 2 Tbsp. Orange juice

Combine ingredients in a small sauce pan.  Stir over medium heat until brown sugar has melted and sauce has thickened, about 10 minutes.  Easy, right?!

As some of you know, one of my favorite dinners is chicken cordon bleu.  When I saw a way to put it with pasta, even better.  When I tried it for myself, I changed it up a little.  The original recipe I got (from Pinterest, as many of you may have guessed) put this as a casserole, but after reading it though, I thought it would just as well on a stove top (the only difference being that mine doesn’t need butter and bread crumbs) and I decided it needed better seasoning.  Essentially, this dish is grown-up mac and cheese, who doesn’t love that?

A problem that I sometimes have with additional seasoning is that it sometimes tends to not be geographically plausible.  The original recipe’s author complained of it lacking flavor, thus adding cayenne.  In this case, why add a Mexican seasoning to a French dish?  I changed it up some, adding oregano and parsley instead, plus some crushed red pepper flakes for a little heat, though I suppose you could also toss some rosemary or thyme into this dish as well.  I was afraid of straying too far into the seasoning world, and losing the flavors of the original dish I love, so I stuck to just the two.

One happy accident that happened when I made it was that I didn’t read my label correctly, assuming my bag of shredded cheese was a two-cup bag, not the four-cup bag that it was, so I unwittingly ripped open the top and threw in twice as much cheese than that which this recipe calls.  On the other hand, trying to dish out so much melted cheese was quite hilarious, and something I could laugh about in the moment.  Your recipe will turn out less gooey than what my picture shows, but no less tasty.  If you’re not a fan of Swiss cheese, sometimes it can be a bit pungent, mozzarella also works well.

Chicken Cordon Pasta

• 1 lb penne (or your favorite small pasta)
• 1 chicken breast, cooked and cubed
• 1 Cup ham, cooked and cubed (about 1 ham steak)
• 1 1/2 C milk
• 8 oz. Cream cheese, softened
• 2 Tbsp. Dried minced onion
• 2 Cup shredded Swiss
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tsp. Oregano
• 1 tsp. Garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp. Parsley
• 1/4 Cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 tsp. Crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

In a large pot, cook pasta according to packaging and drain, return to pot.  While pasta is cooking, in a small sauce pan, combine milk, cream cheese, dried onion, oregano, garlic powder, Parmesan and parsley over low heat.  Stir until cream cheese has melted completely.  Add chicken and ham to the pasta, then when the sauce is creamy and smooth, pour it over pasta and meat.  Add shredded Swiss and stir well.

You might think there isn’t a food I don’t love.  That’s not true.  I just have a lot of favorites, but I have them categorized.  One of my all-time favorite side dishes is stuffing (or dressing, whichever you choose to call it.)  Yes, I know it’s mostly carbs and butter, but I look at it as a fluffy pile of cozy on my plate.  The best is my great-grandma’s recipe, which I’m looking forward to attempting for myself this year, but first I have to scale it down to serve a single-digit number of people.  I’m not kidding, we make it for thirty every November.

Since it’s not nutritionally recommended to eat stuffing as much as I would love to, I found this recipe from Emeril Lagasse.  I originally tried it when exploring eggplant (another veggie we didn’t eat growing up) but when I baked this for the first time, I felt like I was eating a vegetable based stuffing.  It’s rustic, it’s hearty, but it’s mostly vegetables; bread crumbs play a minor role in this dish.  In fact, if you were feeling particularly adventurous, you could probably replace half of the bread crumbs with more Parmesan cheese.

Emeril Lagasse’s Eggplant Casserole

•  4 Tbsp. Olive Oil
• 1 lb. Eggplant, cut into 1/2-inch dice
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 4 ribs of celery, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil leaves (or 1 Tbsp. Dry)
• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 Cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
• salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat.  Add the eggplant and cook halfway through before adding the bell pepper, celery and onion.  Cook 3-4 minutes until vegetables soften.  Add basil, then remove from heat.  Add Parmesan, cream, bread crumbs, salt, and pepper, toss to combine.

Transfer to a casserole dish and bake for 20 minutes.

Tip of the week:  Store your herbs in cool, dark, dry places.  Humidity heat and light cause spices and herbs to lose their flavor faster.