Friday, October 24, 2008

Ham! It's what's for dinner

This is a frugal month. Sorry I haven't been very faithful in updating on our budget challenge. I will probably post more later, but I'll say this much- it's going well! If Y2K every materializes, come to our house. I'm discovering that my meager stores of food will last for a long, long time. The groceries part of my $100 has gone very well...other areas have been a little trickier. More on that later, I hope.
One of the reasons the food goes so far, is that I am trying to stretch meat. Long considered the most expensive component to any grocery budget, we've been eating meat in moderation this month. In general, we've been eating everything in moderation with a little less variety. Guess what! Everyone is still nourished and still happy...hmmmm, food for thought.

Another reason the the food is lasting, is the generosity of others. Our family has always been the happy recipient of hand-me-down food, but this month I have really noticed the quantity. One example, the Christmas ham. Eric's Grandma gave us a nice ham for Christmas last year. Now, typically I shy away from serving pork, but ham is tasty and we have a lot of it. I baked it up a week or more ago, and here's a short list of the dinners we've had from this 8 lb. ham.
  1. Ham w/ mustard sauce, mashed potatoes, carrot sticks
  2. Black bean soup w/ ham, fresh bread, apples
  3. Egg bake w/ cubed ham, orange juice
  4. Split pea soup w/ ham, apples, red bell pepper slices
  5. Ham slices, roasted beets, carrot sticks, spelt bread (a recipe that was NOT a keeper!)
  6. Omelets w/ ham, green pepper, & onion, waffles
  7. Vietnamese fried rice (w/ ham & chicken, veggies), apples
  8. ***the last ham meal, coming up tomorrow night**** Loaded baked potatoes, minus sour cream, but with plenty of ham chunks to make up for it ;).
In case you're wondering, I'm the only one who seems bored with ham. Eric is still hamming it up at the dinner table. (sorry, I just had to find a way to fit that in!)
And I'm accepting any and all new ham recipes. Send them my way!

3 comments:

Jessica said...

wow becca, this is impressive. the only hammy recipe i have is split pea soup and it looks like you've conquered that one. :)

The Mrs. said...

YOu could always put ham in that soup recipe I gave you...
I was thinking about putting meat in it...

Robert J. Nash said...

Truly amazing use of ham. I try to stay away from it myself personally. I can make a good list about rotisserie chicken though. And Rob with all his creations with leftovers.