Andy's Granny came into town tonight. I've known about this visit for weeks, but I still hadn't pre-thought dinner. After work, I ran home before picking up Celia and Charlie to fix something really quickly. Luckily, I had a whole ham thawed out. My friend Leighanne had given me a 2 liter of Cherry Coke Zero the other night. I looked at the ham, I looked at the soda and I thought hmmmm....
Baked Ham and Sweet Carrots
Ingredients:
1 Ham (mine was 6lbs)
1 Pound of Carrots
1 Medium Onion
3/4 Cup of Cherry Coke Zero (or regular Cherry Coke)
1/4 Cup Jelly (use a berry or grape based jelly, I used black currant jelly)
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Put ham in a large roasting pan.
3. Peel and chop carrots and onion into large chunks. Put around ham.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together jelly and Cherry Coke Zero. Pour over ham and veggies when finished.
5. Bake in the oven for 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours. Dish is finished when carrots are tender.
I gave Celia and Charlie a cup of milk this morning with their breakfast. A little while later Celia comes up to me and says, "Mommy, there's something wrong with this milk, it's going to make me throw up." I started to laugh at her and asked Andy to try the milk (He's our official taster of things that might have turned bad). He said the milk wasn't bad, it just needed to be used today or tomorrow. So voila, Chicken and Vegetable Soup with Dumplings. It was a perfect homestye soup for this rainy, cloudy Sunday. It also used up the rest of the chicken that we grilled last night. Thanks to my Mama for helping me figure out the homemade dumplings. I had only made them with Bisquick up until now. They ended up being really easy to make.
Chicken and Vegetable Soup with Dumplings
Ingredients for Soup:
2 Cups Cooked, Chopped, Chicken
2 Carrots
1 Small Yellow Onion
1 Green Pepper
1 TBSP Garlic
6 Cups Water
1 Tsp Salt
1. Chop carrots, onion, and green pepper.
2. Put chicken, carrots, onion and green pepper in a large soup pot. Add garlic, water and salt.
3. Cook on high so soup will boil. Cook until carrots are finished and onions are translucent.
4. Start to add spoon size dumplings to soup. Let soup continue boiling. After the last dumpling is dropped in the pot, cover and cook for 7 to 8 more minutes. Dumplings will plump up and expand.
Ingredients for Dumplings:
2 Cups Flour
1 1/4 Cups Milk
1 Egg
Pinch of Salt
Mix all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. This will be a wet dough. After finished mixing, drop into soup pot by spoonfuls
Happy Anniversary What's for Leftovers? readers! It's been one month since our blog was started! I have really enjoyed sharing my recipes with everybody and I love reading your comments. I look forward to more cooking suggestions and ideas from you! To celebrate, Andy and I are taking our little ones to McDonalds tonight and not cooking. So tomorrow night, tune in for leftover McDonalds :)
Since today is rainy and cozy, I made my family Cheesy Ham and Potato Soup for lunch. It made our house smell great while I was cooking it and then it tasted delicious when we ate it. Plus, I was able to use up the rest of the ham my mom and dad had bought me from the Amish store at the Lake of the Ozarks. After the soup was done cooking, the cheese separated from the broth a bit. When I make this soup again, I'll make a paste out of a little bit of broth and flour. I'll mix it into the soup and bring it to a boil. This should make it a little bit thicker and help with the problem of separating. If you make the soup and include this step, let me know how it turns out.
Cheesy Ham and Potato Soup
Ingredients:
4 Medium Baking Potatoes
3 Medium Carrots
1/2 Cup Choppped Yellow Onion
1 Cup Ham Chunks
1 Can Chicken Broth (I used reduced sodium/fat-free)
1 Can Evaporated Milk (I used fat-free)
1/2 Cup Water
Salt
Pepper
1 Cup Shredded Colby Jack Cheese
Peel and chop potatoes and carrots. Put potatoes, carrots, and onions into a medium-sized soup pot. Add ham, chicken broth, evaporated milk and water. Start cooking on high. Stir frequently, so milk won't burn. After soup starts to boil, turn burner down to medium and cook for 30 minutes. Continue stirring frequently so soup won't boil over or burn. After 30 minutes, potatoes, onions and carrots should be completely cooked. Add salt and pepper to taste. Toss in shredded cheese, let it melt and then turn off burner. Serve as is, or topped with croutons. This recipe will make enough soup for 4 adults.
We are blessed with wonderful neighbors. We live in a quiet, little neighborhood and we have become good friends with the neighbors on all our sides and across the street. So, the other day on our snow day, our neighbor Marty brought us a bag of groceries because they were going out of town. I love when people give us food. It's always different from what I would buy and gives me new ideas for recipes. In the bag was half a cucumber. Normally I would just cut it up because Celia loves to eat cucumber slices, but instead I made a sweet bean salad with it. The good thing about this salad is that it tastes better the second day after marinating in the fridge overnight.
Sweet Bean Salad
Ingredients:
1/2 Large Green Pepper Chopped
1 Large Cucumber Chopped
15 Baby Carrots Chopped
1/4 to 1/2 Cup Onion Chopped (add more, if you like onions a lot)
1 Can of Beans (I used small white ones)
2 TBSP Sugar
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
1 TBSP Rice Wine Vinegar
Salt
Pepper
In a large bowl, mix together green peppers, cucumbers, carrots, onions and beans. In a separate bowl make dressing. Whisk together sugar, olive oil, and vinegar. Pour over veggie mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste. I was very generous with both.
I love potato salad. It reminds me of summer fun and church picnics. I think when you eat it in Winter, it's an automatic mood lifter because it reminds you of sunnier, warmer days. However, there's only so many times you can eat leftover potato salad before you say, "Blah, potato salad again!" Today when I looked in our fridge and saw our leftover potato salad, that's exactly what I said to myself, so I decided to do something with it. This recipe is really fast to put together. I think it took me 15 minutes, and that included a 2 minute break to bandage myself up when I grated my thumb. It was also easy to clean up my mess since everything goes into one pan- this will make Andy happy since he's our official kitchen cleaner!
Ham and Potato Casserole
Ingredients:
1 Cup Potato Salad
1 1/2 Cups Cubed Ham
2 Eggs
1 Cup Milk
3/4 Cup Water
1 Cup Chopped Carrots (about 30 baby carrots)
1 TBSP Dried Onions
1 Box AuGratin Potatoes (I used Betty Crocker)
1 Cup Shredded Cheese (I used 1/2 cup of mozzerlla and 1/2 Cup of Colby)
Preheat oven to 35o degrees. Spray a 9" or 10" glass, pie pan. Crush dried potato rounds from augratin potatoes into smaller pieces. Mix first 8 ingredients together, including spice packet from augratin potatoes. Pour in 1/2 cup of the cheese and mix. Next put the mixture into the pie pan. Bake for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, lightly stir mixture so liquid is equally dispersed. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top. Cook for another 15 to 20 minutes. When finished, cheese will be completly melted on top, and the edges and bottom will start to turn light brown.
