How many of you have leftover ham from Easter? Me too. A lot of ham. I let my daughter pick out our ham this year and she, of course, picked out the biggest one. My brother and his family were visiting, so a little extra ham was ok with me. Besides ham sandwiches, we have two favorite meals we like to make using our leftover ham; ham and swiss stromboli and pork and beans. Yesterday, we made the latter. I take whats left of the meat off the bone and stick the bone and a little meat in my pressure cooker. I added about a pound of beans. (Normally I use white beans, but I was out, so I put pinto beans in instead.) I filled the pot with water, added some bouillon, 1 chopped carrot, 1 chopped celery, 1 chopped tomato, and feeling a little daring, I added a bunch of chopped swiss chard and kale. Basically I just put in whatever vegetables I had on hand. If I had used the white beans I would have added a little brown sugar too. I put the lid on my pressure cooker and cooked it all for about an hour. This is what it looked like when it was done.
It does not look very appetizing to me, but I went ahead and tried it anyway and I was surprised at how good it tasted, even with the greens in there. It had a delicious smoky flavor. I normally make it so it taste like navy bean soup, which this did not. Even so, I think it was a good use of the leftover ham.
After you cook everything, you can take out the bone and the meat you couldn't get off before just falls off. I let the bones cool off and then gave them to my dogs to chew on. I feel good doing that, knowing that I'm using every last bit of that ham. Stay tuned for the ham and swiss stromboli later this week!
I'm making Navy Beans and Ham tonight!!! I also like to make ham rolls-sort of a homemade version of a ham and cheese Hot Pocket. You just grind the ham (food processor) and then add a can of cheese soup and some shredded cheese, also maybe a bit of milk? I'll have to check. Then spoon in your favorite roll recipe and bake. Yummmm-eh!!!!!! :o)
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