Savvy In The Kitchen: leftovers

Showing posts with label leftovers. Show all posts

Monday, November 11, 2013

Ham and Butterbean Soup

This meal is the last stop on our holiday ham leftover meals journey and I think it is the best.

I started out with Holiday Ham. Then with the leftovers, I made Ham and String Bean Stew. Now with the leftover ham bone that weighs about 3.3 Lbs. I will be making Ham and Butterbean Soup.

To make all three meals, there were some essentials that I needed to buy. With the exception of some kitchen staples that I already had like Butter, Brown Sugar, Maple Syrup and garlic, these are the extra things I bought:

Half Ham shank $15

1 can sliced pineapple 1.25

Small bottle maraschino cherries 1.99

2 12 ozcans tomato paste 1.49 each

2 cans 15 oz butter beans 0.99 each

2 cans cut sting beans 0.99 each

1 12 oz bag wide egg noodles 1.49

1 bag of carrots 1.39

1 5 pound bag russet potatoes 3.49

2 onions 0.99

=29.07

So for under $30 I have made three meals including my holiday ham.

Both leftover meals can be frozen, so you can make ahead, freeze and save for later.

Now on to the soup.

The smell from this pot of soup that is basically cooking half the day is mouth watering! When my kids were smaller they would get so excited just knowing that this was dinner. And the best part is that this soup tastes even better the next day. This soup requires the ham bone from the shank that was made from the holiday ham. So don't throw the bone away! That bone is golden. It is the magic that brings this soup together.

There are wonderful flavors that come together in this soup, from the butter beans (also known as Lima beans), carrots and onion. There are also egg noodles in this dish. Some people cook the noodles right in the soup, but the egg noodles will continue to soak up the soup if you add even a bit to much and then you have to add water to bring back the broth. I have done that many times. Not good. So this time I cooked the noodles on the side and then added them to the soup. Much better. But I must admit my husband is not much of a soup person so he actually likes it when the noodles soak up all the soup. He likes it better as a noodle stew. Go figure.

Anyway this soup is perfect on a rainy day or a cold afternoon. It will warm up the whole house from cooking away on the stove for several hours. And the great thing is, it can be frozen. Just thaw overnight in fridge and let simmer on stove till warmed up.

Leftover ham shank bone

6 carrot sticks roughly chopped into 2 inch pieces.

1 whole onion

1 can 12 oz can tomato paste

2 cans Butterbeans (Lima Beans)

1 12 oz bag of wide egg noodles

I started out by filling a large stock pot with 5 quarts of water.

I then added the ham bone and a whole onion and I let it cook on medium high for 2 hours.

After 2 hours I shredded the meat from the bone, which was easy to do since the meat was already falling off the bone. After I removed all the meat from the ham bone, I then removed the ham bone from the soup pot and discarded it.

All that meat came of the bone!

I then added the tomato paste, carrots and beans. Stir well to combine and let cook until carrots are tender, about another hour.

I cooked the egg noodles in a separate saucepan according to the directions on the package. I drained the noodles and added to soup pot.

This recipe makes a lot of serving, so again you can serve some and freeze the rest if desired. It will freeze well in a freezer bag for up to 1 month.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this soup, or this leftover meal series.

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Ham and String Bean Stew

I can't wait for the holidays to really begin and for me that tradition starts with eating turkey and ham and Black Friday.

Thanksgiving is an awesome day for traditional foods but I look forward to cleaning up and heading to the late night outlet sales. My kids already made there list's and they are more excited about Black Friday than I am! I love sticking to tradition, I guess I'm freaky like that.

This recipe is kind of a tradition, in that every time we make holiday ham this is what happens with the ham leftovers. This time I cooked it with added potatoes but if you desire you can just omit the potatoes and serve over mashed potatoes. Either way it is a delicious meal made with leftover holiday ham and because my ham was baked with a sweet glaze, it makes this sauce a bit sweet which adds a wonderful fall flavor.

1 small onion sliced

1 can tomato paste

1 can cut green beans drained

1 1/2 pounds ham from shank cut into 1 inch chunks

1 1/2 pounds potatoes quartered

1/2 teaspoon minced garlic

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Using a dutch oven, on medium-high heat, begin by sautéing sliced onion until soft and translucent about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant about 30 seconds. Add ham chunks and let ham and onions cook together for about 5-7minutes. Add can of tomato paste and let it cook with ham for about 3 minutes then add I add about 2 cups of water to pot and stir. If I feel I need more water, I add about a cup more a little at a time. Add salt and pepper, add potatoes and stir. Let stew cook on low heat for an hour, stirring occasionally.

After an hour, add can of cut green beans and check potatoes for doneness. If potatoes are still not soft, cook on low for an additional 45 minutes to an hour. Serve with crusty bread if desired.

Monday, November 4, 2013

Potato and Egg Scramble

What do you do after an extremely stressful weekend with cranky people, bills to pay, disorganized house to clean and big decisions to make? Well when it comes to a worry-wort like me, I eat. And that itself is not easy to do because when I am stressed or depressed I eat and then I feel better, but I have been trying to eat healthy lately and so eating away stress is really hard to do. So what to do with those healthy baked potatoes from last night? You make breakfast.

I love Leftovers, especially potatoes. There are so many things I can do with them. I made some baked potatoes yesterday and I has some leftover baked potatoes that nobody ate. Usually leftover baked potatoes, I find are not really

appetizing, but when fried up with a little bit of butter, everything is right with the world again:)

This is a breakfast that will bring anyone to the kitchen saying "what is that smell"

The smell of bacon wakes everyone up. My favorite meal of the day is truly breakfast. And for me, well food just makes me feel happy. So here is a breakfast that I would like to share with you.

2 large baked potatoes (diced)

4 eggs

4 slices bacon

1 tablespoon of butter

salt

ground black pepper

Begin by dicing up the leftover baked potatoes into little bite-sized

Pieces, set aside. Take 4 slices of bacon and cook them in a pan on medium-high heat until browned. Remove bacon from pan to a paper towel lined plate to drain from fat. Discard all but 1 teaspoon of bacon grease from pan. Add diced baked potatoes to the pan with a dash of salt and ground black pepper and stir to combine. Let potatoes get a bit browned in pan for about 2 minutes. Chop cooked bacon slices in to bite sized pieces and add cooked bacon bits to potatoes. Let them cook together until potatoes have softened up and browned a bit more, about 2 more minutes. In a medium bowl whisk 4 eggs until combined. Add 1 tablespoon butter to potato bacon mixture and stir to melt butter and to combine. Add whisked egg mixture to pan and stir gently with a spatula to let the eggs scramble up light and fluffy.

I love making breakfast with leftovers. How about you?

Next up I will be working on a holiday meal that will provide a leftover meals

That will warm the upcoming winter.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Hash Brown Mash Browns - A Simple Family Tradition

I love cooking with leftovers of anything and so does my husband as well.

He loves to experiment in the kitchen with leftovers and he says that all leftovers can become a masterpiece with some butter and soy sauce :)

He once took some leftover Sunday Meatballs and Rice and removed as much sauce as he could from the meatballs, chopped them up and fried them with some leftover rice, butter and soy sauce to create a sort of asian meatball fried rice dish. It actually wasn't bad, it was really good!

Today we will be making a simple dish with leftover mashed potatoes.

Hash Brown, Mash Browns is my family tradition for leftovers of mashed potatoes. My mother-in-law introduced me to this simple leftover ritual.

My kids always look forward to breakfast when they know I am making mashed potatoes for dinner.

I have done a lot with leftover mashed potatoes, I think my favorite was taking some leftover mashed potatoes, leftover meatballs and wrapped them in egg roll wrappers and deep fried them, yum!

But for a fast breakfast, what we like to do is just fry a couple spoonfuls of mashed potatoes in butter until a bit of crust forms on the bottom then flip.