Ideas for Left-Over Easter Ham

Let's face it. There's almost always some left-over ham at Easter and you get tired of having a warmed over repeat of Easter dinner. So here are just a few ideas of what you can do with the ham. Oh! And before you cook the ham - be sure to make extra glaze! You'll want it later.

Use it for breakfast.

Fry up ham steaks to have with eggs.
Dice it up to use in omelets.
Dice it up to serve in hash. Great with a fried egg on top.
Use for Eggs Benedict.
Dice it up to add to a French Toast bake/casserole.
Grind it and season it and make your own sausage patties. Serve with eggs or on an English muffin.

For lunch or dinner.

Pair with turkey, Swiss cheese and French toast for a classic Monte Cristo. Yum!
Layer dices or thin slices in with scalloped potatoes, with or without a cheesy cheddar layer.
Make split pea soup. Uses the bone as well, if you have one.
Grind it up and make an English meat pie. * Directions below.
Make extra glaze sauce, dice up the ham, add pineapple chunks and maraschino cherries and serve over rice with a veggie on the side. Or add in the veggie and make it a rice bowl.
Make homemade ham and pineapple pizza.
Make a Meat Lovers calzone.
Make a casserole with egg noodles, cream of potato soup, baby peas and diced ham.
Use frozen puff pastry cups and mix diced ham with cream of potato soup (or other cream soup of your choice), peas (or other vegetable finely diced) and fill cups and bake.
Ham and potato pizza. * Directions below.
Dice, mix with brown rice, vegetables and a curry sauce.
Dice, mix with white rice, soy sauce and stir fry vegetables.
Dice and mix in with a pack of Top Ramen.
Put a slice on an English muffin pizza.
Add to a lasagna, especially good with an eggplant lasagna.
Make ham salad.
Puree in your food processor with mustard and hot sauce and make a deviled ham spread.
Replace the beef or chicken in your taco.
Cube and put in little Ziploc containers with cubes of cheese and almonds or other nut for quick protein snacks.

English Meat Pie:

You will need:
Left-Over ham
Left-over, or freshly made mashed potatoes
Pie crust, enough for 2 pies
Any vegetables you wish to include
A springform pan is ideal, otherwise a very deep pie dish or casserole dish

Line bottom and side of springform pan with pie dough. Prebake according to pie crust directions for 15 minutes. Set aside.

In a food processor, grind up ham to a fine texture. Add any vegetables to the ham.
Combine the ham/veggie mixture with the mashed potatoes. May be easier if the potatoes are warm. If you have any ham glaze left over you can add a little of it now.

Spread meat and potato mixture into pie shell. Use remaining crust to cover top. Make sure all edges meet. Pinch to seal. Cut slits in middle for steam. Bake according to pie crust directions. Make sure pastry is thoroughly cooked. Slice and serve.


Ham and Potato Pizza:

Good way to get rid of lots of left-overs.

Use a canned or premade dough. Spread it out in a pan. Fill crust with left-over mashed potatoes. Sprinkle a layer of diced or chopped ham on top of potatoes. You can add veggies or other items like olives or pineapple. If you have glaze left from the ham, drizzle some on for extra flavor. Bake until dough is cooked.  Great for a movie night or after school snack.

Shelf-Stable Items to Keep On Hand

A recent post on a FaceBook group made me start thinking about all the shelf-stable items people could keep on hand during our Covid 19 lockdown. Or at least try to keep as many as they can with supermarkets being what they are. I've made a list of items, in no particular order, and I've given you some ideas. Leave comments at the bottom if you'd like more ideas.

1. Instant potatoes - not just mashed, but boxes of scalloped, au gratin and other varieties and flavors.

 

2. Canned Potatoes. Whole, sliced and diced. Make roasted potatoes, hash, home fries, scalloped potatoes. Use them in a soup or stew. Mix them with other veggies.

3. Canned veggies. I know, not as good as fresh or even frozen, but when you have small fridge, canned works better. And don't forget canned tomatoes. Diced, crushed, puree, sauce. Get some of everything.

4. Canned beans. Yeah, technically veggies, but I think people don't think about these a lot. Not just baked beans, but chili beans, chick peas, lentils, black beans etc.

5. Canned meals. Chef Boyardee, Spaghettios, Dinty Moore Beef Stew and anything else your store may carry.

6. Canned soup. Lots of flavors out there. Good for lunch or dinner. Get creamed soups and cheddar cheese soup to use in cooking.

7. Gravy. Buy it in jars, cans or packets of mix. You will always want it on hand once you're used to it.

8. Hormel Complete meals. In little white plastic containers. No freezer or refrigerator needed. Just put in your pantry. Most have some kind of meat and gravy, but there's also spaghetti, chicken and rice, chicken Alfredo and more. Serve with a veggie and everyone gets what they want and you didn't have to cook.

9. Pasta. For the obvious pasta and sauce, but also chop suey, goulash, soups, casseroles, pesto, homemade hamburger helper and more.

10. Pasta sauce. Again, the obvious, plus use for homemade pizza
and calzones, fried mozzarella sticks and fried ravioli, over chicken with melted cheese, with frozen meatballs on sub rolls, lasagna, stuffed shells and casseroles.

11. Dry pesto. Knorr makes pesto in a dry mix. This is better than refrigerated pesto, takes up less room and ready only when you need it.

12. Egg Noodles. Great substitute for pasta. Pair with ground meat and pasta sauce or ground meat with beef gravy for homemade hamburger helper. Or another version using ground meat and cans of cheddar cheese soup or Cheez Whiz. Use in casseroles, stews and soups.

13. Chess Whiz. Not just for dipping nachos. Use for cheeseburger macaroni, homemade Mac and Cheese, cheese over broccoli or other veggies, casseroles and more.

14. Great Seasons Salad Dressing Mix. Instead of making salad dressing, make a marinade good for beef, pork, chicken or fish. Less than the cost of traditional marinade and takes up hardly any room. Can also use it to season meatloaf or meatballs.

15. Tuna Fish. Obviously for sandwiches. Good for lunch or dinner. Serve on toast with a bowl of soup for a heartier meal. Also, serve it straight out of the can with a dash of salt and some crackers. Maybe a few carrot and/or celery sticks in the side. Make an old fashioned tuna noodle casserole. Add it to salads.

16. Canned Chicken. Comes just like canned tuna. Make chicken salad for sandwiches. Use it in soups or stews. Use it for tacos. Add it to salads. Use it in casseroles.

17. Canned Shrimp. Eat it on sandwiches like tuna. Add to salads. Add to tacos. Add to hush puppies.

18. Canned Clams. Use with canned diced potatoes and cream of celery soup to make chowder. Mince them up and make a beer batter with pancake mix and make clam fritters aka RI clam cakes.

19. Pancake/Waffle Mix. Obviously, pancakes and waffles. You can also use it to make batter for chicken or fish. Use beer or add Old Bay Seasoning. Running short on bread? Make savory waffles. A waffle with a little rosemary and sage is wonderful with ham. Stretch a couple of ham steaks into a meal for 4 by cutting them in half and grilling them between two waffles with cheese and honey mustard. If you have room in your freezer, make a big batch of waffles and freeze them in a Ziploc bag. Your kids can toast them like Eggos, but it's cheaper.

20. Corn Bread Mix. Naturally the usual corn bread. But you can make corn dogs, a corn bread pot pie, fiesta bread (see my post on 5 Things to do with Jiffy Corn Bread Mix). Corn Bread Stuffing, muffins using dried cranberries or blueberries, hotcakes, hush puppies and more.

21. Baking Mix. Like Bisquick or Jiffy Baking Mix. You can make Southern style biscuits, dumplings, fruit cobblers, quick breads, pot pies and so much more. Great alternative if they are out of pancake mix.

22. Three Bean Salad. Great side dish, especially at lunch. Help fill them up and tide them over until dinner. Can also add to a soup or stew.

23. SPAM. Hey, it's good. In Hawaii there's a whole food culture built around it. Fry slices of it in a pan with some brown sugar and pineapple rings. Serve on a bulkie roll. Add lettuce, tomato etc if you like. Dice up and add to already browned and seasoned diced potatoes. When hot, serve with a fried egg. Dice and serve with rice with veggies. (This means keep canned pineapple around too)

24. Canned Corned Beef. I like it on a sandwich. My parents used to make English muffin pizzas and add a slice of corned beef under the cheese. Great for hash. Great to warm a slice in a pan and serve with breakfast if you are out of other breakfast meats.

25. Taco Shells. You can put almost anything in them. Even
leftovers. Make eating leftovers a taco party.

26. Sardines. Yeah, yeah. I know. But how many of you have actually tried them and not just avoided them. When I was very little my mother used to serve them to me on top of buttered saltines until sometime during kindergarten I decided I didn't like them anymore. Put them on salads, serve them on crackers, use them in hush puppies or just eat them out of the can. Don't make a big deal out of them and maybe your kids will like them.

27. Cake, Cookie, Brownie Mix. The day will come when someone has a sweet tooth and there's nothing in the house. Or your kid(s) will want something different to do. Bake with them. Just make sure if you've got cake mix, you've got frosting.

28. Mac & Cheese. Like most of us don't have that anyway. But you can change it up. Add ground meat, diced ham, peas and carrots, broccoli. Layer it in a casserole with ground meat and a can of diced tomatoes and some more cheese. Put it on a homemade pizza.  Stir in your favorite fixings, add more cheese and bake it til it's bubbly.

29. Beef and Chicken Broth Cubes. If you don't have room in your fridge to put a box of broth, make sure you keep plenty of cubes or crystals on hand to use. You wouldn't want your food to be under seasoned after all your hard work.

30. Marinades, Sauces and Condiments. You go to the store to get some meat and you come home with chicken. Again. You used to love chicken, but now.... How many times can you have Shake n Bake or lemon pepper chicken? Keep a variety of marinades and sauces in your pantry. Even salad dressings can be used. Keep Dijon and honey mustard on hand. I know they have to be refrigerated, but once you get used to cooking with them, you'll use them a lot. Lipton's Beefy Onion, brown sugar, garlic, honey, nuts. Grind up some pecans and add to Panko breadcrumbs. Slather chicken with mixture of Dijon mustard, honey and paprika. Press into pecan/panko mix and bake. There you go, nice, easy new recipe.

hope you find this useful.
KerryBut

Questions? Ask below in the Comments.

What To Do With Leftovers?

What To Do With Leftovers?

There's nothing worse than opening your refrigerator and seeing leftovers sitting there that you know will probably end up in the trash. It's so frustrating! But what are you supposed to do? Nobody really wants leftovers, right?

Well.... maybe. Check out this list of ideas to see if you can spark some life into those leftovers.

1. One of my favorite ideas is Hash! Yup, nice and easy. Dice up everything to about the same size and reheat with some lovely browned diced potatoes.

Hash with leftover chicken and chickpeas

 

2. Pot Pie/Shepard's Pie. Whether you make it with a pie crust, a box of Jiffy corn bread or with a layer of mashed potatoes, putting leftovers together in any pie-like form is a crowd pleaser.

3. Soup/Stew. A great use especially of leftover veggies. Add some noodles or pasta or even rice to fill it out into a hearty meal. Want more of a stew? Thicken it up and add some beans to the mix for a heartier meal.

4. Empanadas. Mince all your leftovers together and reheat them in a skillet, add any seasonings to either amp up the flavor profile or change it completely. Put filling inside empanada wrapper and fry. Serve with a nice salad.

5. Noodle Casserole. Cook up some egg noodles, mix in your leftovers along with a can of Campbell's Cream of Whatever, a can full of milk or cream and some shredded cheese. Bake until done. Campbell's has lots of cream soups, not just mushroom. There's cream of celery, potato, chicken, broccoli. You can even use cheddar cheese soup.

6. Meat Pie. Great for all that leftover ham after Easter. You need a lot of leftover meat, but it doesn't have to be the same. It can be a turkey breast from one night, some chicken thighs from another, etc. But it's all poultry, so that's ok. Put the meat and veg in your food processor and blend it all together. Mix together with some leftover mashed potatoes or some refrigerated/frozen/instant/fresh potatoes. Whatever you've got. Line a springform pan, a very deep pie plate or a casserole dish, bottom and sides with pastry. Fill with meat and potato mixture. Top with pastry and bake according to pastry directions. Serve with gravy.

7. Scalloped potatoes. This is great when you just have leftover meat. Again, great for leftover Easter ham. Make scalloped potatoes according to your favorite recipe (or use box mix), but add a layer of bite sized pieces of meat on top of potatoes until you reach the top. Bake as usual. Makes it a meal instead of a side dish. Great dish for a brunch.

8. Junkyard Pizza. Make your own pizza. Do it with your kids and have fun. See who can come up with the weirdest combination. If the pieces are too big/messy for a pizza, make calzones.

9. Over Loaded Baked Potatoes. Make twice-baked potatoes, but instead of putting all of the potato back in, leave room to add a mixture of your leftovers dripping in cheese sauce. Jar of Cheez Whiz or some Campbell's cheddar soup will do the job.

10. Everything But The Kitchen Sink Lasagna. You can either dice everything real small or puree in your food processor, depending on whether or not you want chunks. Spread mixture over the layer of ricotta cheese when assembling your lasagna. You get more flavor and more protein and nutrients from the veggies.

 So... there you go. Ten ideas of what to do with leftovers. Hope you found something helpful!