Hamburgers

I know what you're probably thinking--there's no way you made that delicious hamburger in the picture. And you're right. But I DID make hamburgers for dinner last night, and I did forget to take pictures of them, so I'm just posting a mouth-watering picture of a burger I got at this little diner across from the local gas station. They are as delicious as Fannie's for sure.

Fannie Farmer doesn't have much of a recipe for burgers. She doesn't have those fancy stuffed burgers that are all the rage lately. She doesn't even fancy them up like I do with bread crumbs and eggs and onions and all that fun stuff.

Fannie's recipe goes like this:
1 lb ground beef
butter for frying
salt & pepper

Just barely mix the salt and pepper. Do not handle the meat more than necessary or it gets tough and dry.

Shape the meat into patties and fry in butter 3-4 minutes per side.

I like my burgers a bit rare (my husband was scared to eat them without further cooking), so I probably cooked them less than that. I'd never fried hamburgers in butter before, so that was new. And I've never made them so plain. But, with tomatoes I had picked literally 20 minutes ago, how could they go wrong?

Sorry for the lack of pictures, but some days, I'm lucky I managed to make anything at all. Days like this, when I work all day, take my son to Tae Kwon Do, drive an hour to get home, work in the garden, unload the clean dishes, wash the dirty dishes, and THEN start dinner, well, remembering my camera just isn't going to happen. Lucky for me, everyone in my house likes burgers, so they didn't mind that they weren't fancied up. So, this 'recipe' is for a busy week night dinner. Can't get much more simple than this.

Ham and Tomato Frittata

More ham? Yes, please. I'm telling you, this thing never goes away. But I'm okay with that. Yay for leftovers. It gives me a direction to go when looking for my next recipe. This frittata didn't call for ham, but I threw it in anyway, since it goes with eggs.

Onions and garlic.

My adapted version of Fannie's Frittata
I threw a small chopped onion in the cast iron skillet with olive oil and a couple cloves of garlic, minced, and cooked until the onion was transparent/yellow.
Cut up a huge tomato from the garden and add.

I beat 4 eggs and mixed it with fresh oregano, salt and pepper, and parmesan cheese (about 1/4 c.)

Eggs and spices and cheese.

Poured it into frying pan on top of the onions and tomatoes. Covered as directed in recipe, and cooked on low heat until the edges begin to pull away from the pan. It was still juicy on top, so I put it under the broiler as suggested for 5-10 minutes until it was solid all the way across.

Everything in the pan and ready to cook.

For this recipe, I used a lot more onion than it called for--one small onion, chopped fine. I didn't have leftover cooked veggies, which Fannie recommends, so I chopped up a fresh tomato from the garden. Then I tossed in about a cup of chopped ham. I beat the eggs and added them, along with a bit of salt, pepper, and fresh oregano. I added a healthy dose of parmesan cheese, about 4 tbsp.

 It turned out pretty well. My husband really liked it. It was all pretty from the tomatoes, but I would have liked it better if I'd had some other veggies to throw in, like peppers or mushrooms. I may make another version of this soon. I can see it becoming one of those recipes that I make over and over, with slight alterations every time.

Country Style Ham Casserole with Tomatoes

I can't believe it! I made it through an entire month of recipes. I've cooked more than usual, experimented with some new recipes, revisited some old ones, and found some good stuff. My favorite so far is definitely baked peaches.

As you have no doubt noticed, I tend to make recipes according to what I have--whatever vegetables are ready in the garden (hello, cabbage), or a basic food I bought and possibly cooked and now need to find ways to use it up (rice, ham).

Potatoes and onions from my mom's garden.

Speaking of ham, I have one more recipe using the ham I made the other day. I'm telling you, never make a ham for a family of three. Not that anyone else would ever make that mistake!

Anyway, this is a recipe for a casserole, which I wouldn't have made if it hadn't cooled off this week, especially after the baked ham debacle. But since it was cool, I figured it wouldn't be so bad to light the oven.

When it came out of the oven....Not a very pretty dish, but oh so good.

See my hand? Didn't think so.

I cut the recipe some, since I had used some of the ham already. But here's what Fannie says:

Put in a casserole dish 1 slice ham, about 2 lbs/2 inches thick
Cover with 1 1/2 c. sliced potatoes
1 sliced onion
Thyme
2 c. milk

Cover and bake 1 1/2 hrs at 350.

I had some tomatoes, so I threw in a gigantic chopped tomato from our garden and omitted the milk. But otherwise, I stuck close to the recipe, altering the amounts so we wouldn't have too many leftovers, since I'm the only person in my family that eats leftovers. I did cook the potatoes and onions in a steamer for about 5 minutes first, so I didn't have to cook it quite so long. I used fresh thyme and cooked the whole thing for about an hour, uncovered, in a 350 oven.

It looked kind of weird when I took it out of the oven, and not very appealing, to be honest. And since I'd barely put anything in it, I thought it would be plain. But it was actually really good. The tomatoes helped keep the leftover ham moist, and all the flavors blended together perfectly. I ground some black pepper on top, but otherwise, the thyme did the work as far as seasonings, and the ham was salty enough to flavor the whole thing. I would definitely make this again. It was excellent.

Borscht (Russian Beet Soup)

 It's been a while since I've posted a cabbage recipe. But I'm still drowning in cabbages. No complaints here, though. It's nice to have a success crop my first year of gardening. What I don't have is beets. But my mom grew some, so she brought me some and asked if I could make borscht. I don't think I'd ever heard of this dish before my mom said I should make it.

It took me a couple days to get to it, since I didn't have any beef broth. I ended up making it with bone broth from the ham I made last week. The recipe is pretty simple.

In a large pot, cook 4 c. beef broth

 

 Get enough beets to make 2 cups. I used 3, but only took pics of 2.

Remove stems and skins. 

Chop or shred beets.

Add 1 onion, chopped, and 1-2 c. shredded cabbage. I used purple cabbage.

Simmer in a covered pot until veggies are tender.

Add 1 tbsp. lemon juice or vinegar

Add water if necessary

Season if necessary

Serve hot or chilled, with

1/2 c. sour cream

This recipe was pretty good. The beets were very sweet and the soup had great flavor. I really enjoyed it. If you like beets and cabbage, you would like this recipe.

Pea Soup

Pea soup is a staple in our house. My sister likes it so much she told me I wasn't allowed to make it at anyone else's house because she'd miss it. So I brought over the bone from the ham because pea soup is one of the only ways I know how to use a ham bone (even though I've never actually had a ham bone, I just know they are supposed to be in pea soup).

I've made pea soup enough times that it's on my list of 10 things I can make consistently well. But Fannie Farmer's recipe is quite different from the one I usually make, which I don't think is from a recipe, it's just a bunch of stuff that seems to go well in pea soup.

Here is Fannie's take on this classic.
You will need:
4 c. water
1 c. dried split peas
1 ham bone
1 chopped onion
salt and pepper


Optional add-ins: celery, parsley, thyme or rosemary, bay leaf

I usually make mine with carrots, celery, and potatoes. But this time, I wanted to use the Fannie Farmer recipe instead of my own, so I only used carrots, because that's what my mom had.

For herbs, I usually use rosemary, because I love the flavor it adds. But my mom didn't have any fresh rosemary, so I used thyme this time.

Fannie says to heat the water to a boil, add the peas, then remove from heat and sit for an hour. That's how I make beans when I need a quick soak, but peas usually take a fraction of the time that beans do, so I've never done this. But this time, I did as Fannie said.

My mom didn't want me cooking hot food for hours in the house, so I used a crock pot from this point on. When the soak was done, I turned on the crock pot and added the remaining ingredients.

Fannie says that once the peas are soft, remove ham bone, rub through a sieve or mash with blending fork, dilute with milk, and season with salt and pepper.

I found this soup way too thin. I usually use 2 c. peas, which I should have done here. It was really...soupy. I know, it's soup. But I like it so thick you could almost eat it with a fork. But the flavor here was good. However, I have my own non-recipe pea soup down to a T, and I like it much better, so I think I'll stick with that one, the tried-and-true recipe I've been making for years.

Overall, I'd say this is a 3 out of 5.

Stuffed Peppers

This was another one of Fannie Farmer's recipes that was so vague it wasn't even really a recipe. It goes something like: cut peppers in  half, clean out seeds and veins, steam five minutes, and fill. It gives suggestions as to what to fill it with--corn, ham, beef and rice, seasons, etc. But it isn't a very specific recipe where it tells how much of everything. So I'm just going to post my recipe.

Take 2 green bell peppers
Cut in half lengthwise and empty out seeds and stems.
Steam peppers for 5-10 minutes.
Meanwhile, saute a small onion (I use coconut oil for frying) and
2 ripe tomatoes.
Add 1 c. cooked, chopped ham
1/2-1 c. cooked rice
Ground pepper for seasoning (you won't need salt if using ham, as it's very salty)

Spoon filling into peppers.
Bake at 350 for 10-15 mins.
Top with grated cheese.
I always return it to the oven but turn the oven off at this point and just wait for a few minutes while the cheese melts. But you could turn it on broil for a few minutes if you wanted, to give the cheese a little crispiness on top.

For stuffed zucchini, go here.

Baked Ham

My sister raised pigs a while back, and she'd given us a ham that needed to be used. I probably should have saved this for a party or something, but I was curious to try my hand at a ham, which I'd never cooked. Huge pieces of meat are always daunting, because I never know how to cook them. But my husband likes ham, so I figured he could always eat the leftovers on sandwiches.

Fanny Farmer's baked ham recipe follows.


Put ham in shallow baking dish, fat side up.
Bake at 325 until 150 degrees when tested with a meat thermometer (my meat thermometer said 175, so I cooked it long enough to get it to 175, since I'm paranoid about eating pork anyway).
To glaze, cut skin off and score the fat in a diamond pattern and glaze.
Put whole cloves in each diamond.
Bake at 400 for 30 minutes.
Baste several times while cooking.
Remove from oven and let sit at least 15 mins before serving.

This recipe was tough, since I had a big piece of a pig that was cured as ham. I didn't have the cone-shaped thing that I've seen in stores. I've never actually eaten a real ham before. So I wasn't sure how to do it with a rectangular piece of ham. But I followed directions as best as I could. My ham did not have a skin, nor did it have a 'fat side.' So I just put it in a pan.

I did not turn oven to 400, because I somehow missed that in the directions. I left it on 350 for about 2-2.5 hrs, glazing about halfway through.

Glaze recipe:
Mix 1 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. honey, maple syrup, cider, vinegar, or pineapple or orange juice.
Ground or fresh mustard

I used 1/4 c. honey, 1/4 c. apple cider vinegar, and 1 tsp. ground mustard. I didn't want all that sugar on it, esp. since I was planning to use the leftovers. I also wanted pineapple with the ham, so I stuck a few pineapple rings on it after glazing it. There is a basting sauce recipe, too, but I just basted with the juices in the pan from the meat and the glaze that had run off into the pan, since it was much the same as the basting sauce recipe and I think the recipe must have been for a much bigger ham than our slab of meat.

Optional basting sauce:
Mix 1 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. ground mustard
1/2 c. vinegar
OR
1 c. honey
1 c. orange juice

It turned out very good, actually. It took forever to cook, and heated up the house A LOT, so I wouldn't make this again in summer. I just didn't know if it would keep until the holiday season, and we are never at home on Christmas anyway. But it would be much better to heat up the house by baking for 3 hours in the winter!

Look at all that yummy fat.

Anyway, all in all it was good and hammy. I wish I'd had a big heaping pile of vegetables to eat with it instead of just extra pineapple rings, but hey, we can't all be perfect! Maybe next time.

Look for more ham recipes, which I'm sure I'll make when my husband gets tired of eating 2 lbs. of leftover ham!