Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Ham and beans recipe

For this recipe, you will need a sizable chunk of ham that someone gave you that you don't know what to do with.

1 ham chunk. About the size of a human head.
3 potatoes as big as your fist if you're not really mad
2  regular carrots or 1/2 a bag of baby carrots
1/4 a small head of cabbage unless you like cabbage and want to add more
3 cups of water
1 big onion
1 bell pepper (if it's a huge one)
Can of beans (not drained unless you use black beans) I used pinto and didn't drain them
garlic/salt/pepper

(Chop the potatoes, carrots and cabbage into pieces that would reasonably fit in your mouth, and put the chunk of ham on top in a roasting pan. Add 1 cup of water and cover. Cook in the oven at 325 degrees for 20 minutes per pound of ham if the ham is already cooked. These directions were on the pre-cooked ham package.)
Try to feed this to your family as dinner with sweet rolls, while you plot how to "poison" them with the same ingredients the next day.)

The next day:
Remove the ham from its roasting pan, slice about a lb. or 2 thinly, and then dice (like they won't notice it's the same thing they hated yesterday.) You want about 3-4 cups worth. Set aside.

Remove the vegetables and juice that remain in the bottom of the roaster pan. Shove all that (but not the "poisonous" ham pieces) in a food processor or blender, preferably when it's not running. If it starts acting like play-doh, add more water. You're looking for slushy, not putty. People are expected to eat this when it's done. Set aside.

Meanwhile (like you have 8 arms):
Melt 2 tbsp. butter in a skillet, and add diced onion, and diced bell pepper. Saute that, or almost burn some of it, until the onion is clearish, then throw in the diced ham like you're putting out a fire.

Apologize to your housemate while they take the batteries out of the smoke detector.

Stir often, or do that cool pan-flip that the pros do on cooking shows. Clean up the mess if you miss like it never happened.

Open a can of beans and throw that in the crock-pot. Add the stuff from the skillet and the goo from the blender and 2 cups of water. Add garlic and pepper to taste. Put the salt on the table for anyone who needs more salt in a ham-based soup.

Leave it on low while you use "I'm cooking dinner!" as an excuse to have some down-time. It's already cooked, but you need the flavors to marry, let's say. Stir it every time someone comes into the kitchen. Announce "It's almost ready!" even though you know it's been ready for 30 minutes.

It was a hit with my picky family... I served it with sweet rolls, canned pineapple chunks, and fried cheese quesadillas.

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