The Ham

Back to the topic of food. I enjoy writing about it and reading about it, but have not really had any recent meals I thought were interesting enough to write about. My standards have declined a bit since moving back to the family home, as my main goal right now is to use what they had in the pantry in addition to what I brought with me. But today, we'll talk about ham. 

It's been said, accurately, that "eternity is a ham and two people." Well, try it with one person sometime. I purchased this ham at Costco back before Christmas, in the hope that maybe I could make my mother a nice New Year's dinner. Sadly her health was declining rapidly at that point and the ham never got used. So I froze it, and when I moved it came with me - approximately two kilos of pork and sodium. Eventually I had to use it, so I thawed it out and heated it in the oven. That was nearly a month ago, and here is what I did with it:

Dinner of ham, broccoli and mashed potatoes, repeated for a second night. I sliced it thin and used it for sandwiches once or twice. Then I decided to try ham salad (mayonnaise, mustard, onion, pickle relish, celery). I've always been fond of ham salad, but it was really too rich to eat for multiple meals and I was very tired of it by the time I finished it up. 

The caregivers had purchased a lot of dried beans (one of them had found a recipe for "chili beans" that my mother really liked) and I decided that next I would use those and the ham for bean soup. It was a success and I wound up making two batches of it. (It's a good thing that ham is preserved and lasts a long time, as it was still edible for all these experiments. Also, bean soup freezes well.) 

Lastly I decided to try jambalaya, a rice dish with sauteed veggies, canned tomatoes, chicken broth... and ham. The very last of it. 

I have no idea how many meals this came to, but it was a lot. Easily fifteen, probably more. The Epic of the Ham was a definite success, but I don't think I will be eating it again for a while. Now it's time to figure out what to do with the chicken in the freezer. 

Labels: Ingestion