Meal Plan Monday

It's still Monday!  Better late than never with Meal Plan Monday :-)  I have been prepping my meal plans each week, but have missed the occasional post - we've had a few long weekends, and long weekends tend to throw me off my blogging schedule a little bit (I'm usually busy having fun with the fam on that extra day off!).  

When deciding on our plan for this week, hubs asked for ham, which we haven't had since Easter.  So, ham it is...and lots of it this week!


Here is this week's meal plan:

Sunday - Ham, Smoky Scalloped Potatoes, Green Beans

Monday - Lefotover Ham, scalloped potatoes, more beans, and perogies for the kids

Tuesday - Yes...more ham.  Told you, we are on a ham kick!  And salad and perogies.

Wednesday - Pork Chops, Mixed Baby Greens Salad, Peas

Thursday - Out for dinner night - I am working late so we are having dinner brought in, and our oldest has a team pizza party after hockey practice and our youngest is having dinner with Grandma and Papa.

Friday - Creamy Ham and Potato Soup, Homemade Tea Biscuits

Saturday - Homemade Hamburgers, French Fries and Salad

I hope this helps you make your weekly meal plan too!

Creamy Ham and Potato Soup

Ham is a rare meal in our house,  and when we have ham, we always end up with tonnes of leftovers.  We all know that I love making soup and have been on a real soup kick this year, but I didn't want to make Ham and Split Pea Soup (not that I don't like it, I just wasn't in the mood.  I wanted a creamy soup...and there is the recipe that I found:

Creamy Ham and Potato Soup (Source: The Girl Who Ate Everything)

Ingredients:

3 1/4 cups chicken broth

3 1/2 cups potatoes, washed, peeled and diced
1 stalk of celery, washed and diced
1/3 cup onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup carrot, diced
1 cup diced cooked ham
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
5 tablespoons butter
5 tablespoons flour
2 cups milk

Pour the chicken broth into a stockpot.

Add in the potatoes, celery, onion, carrot and ham. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and cook over medium until potatoes are tender.  This will take about 15 minutes (depending on how big your potato pieces are). Add in the salt and pepper.

In a separate saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat. Whisk in flour, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens. Slowly stir in milk. Continue to constantly stir over medium-low heat until thick, approximately 5 minutes.

Slowly add the milk mixture into the ham mixture in the stockpot, and cook soup until heated through.  Serve immediately.

We topped our soup with cheddar and chives.

VERDICT:
Yum.  Just plain yum.  I loved this soup, and ate a lot of it.  This makes a big pot of soup so you will have leftovers.  I am almost looking forward to fall, when on a cool fall day, this soup will be just perfect!

Baked Egg Cups

Breakfast at our house is quite boring, I am happy eating my oatmeal with raisins and our oldest son likes to have pancakes, french toast or waffles.  Every.Single.Day. Not kidding!  So I have been trying to "shake it up" a bit to save myself from endless pancake flipping (one can only get so creative with pancakes!) and I have found a few new recipes to try.  One of my former co-workers made something like these for us at work one morning, which everyone enjoyed.  I totally forgot about them until I saw a photo of something similar come across my Pinterest screen, so of course I had to add them to my list to try.  With my mother-in-law visiting this past weekend, we had my Mom over for brunch on Saturday (neither my Dad or father-in-law were in town), and I made them for everyone.  Adjust the quanitites based on how many people you are serving, I'm going to include the numbers I used on Saturday.  Here is my adaptation of the recipe:

9 eggs
9 slices of deli meat (I used Schneider's Country Naturals Ham)
Shredded cheddar cheese (or cheese of your choice)
Diced green onions
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat your oven to 400F.  Spray muffin tin with cooking spray. Lay a piece of ham in each muffin hole, creating a ham cup. Crack one egg per muffin hole. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes, depending on how you like your eggs cooked.  Remove from oven, top with green onions and cheese.  Enjoy!

VERDICT:
This is a SUPER EASY recipe and a great way to change up breakfast.  We served these eggs with hashbrowns, toast and cantaloupe and the meal was well received by everyone!  Next time I might try to add a few more veggies to the egg cups, maybe some peppers (or whatever I happen to have in the fridge), maybe some fresh parsley, and maybe a different cheese. Yum!

Hearty Ham & Split Pea Soup

What does one do with leftover ham and the ham bone?  Why, we make soup of course!  I've never tackled split pea soup before, but I figured, no time like the present.  My mother-in-law shared her split pea soup recipe with me and I combined it with the recipe that I found in my favourite cookbook series - Whitewater Cooks - to make my own recipe.  It is a hearty soup, very green, and quite tasty!  I already had most of the items in my kitchen, with the exception of the dried split peas, but a quick adventure to the grocery store and we were all set for soup making!

Here is the recipe:

Part 1

1 ham bone

1 onion (chopped)

2 carrots (chopped)

1 celery stalk (chopped)

2 bay leaves

1 ½ tsp thyme

Simmer ham bone in about 10 cups of water with bay leaves, thyme, onion, carrots, and celery for about 3 hours.  Discard bone, bay leaves and vegetables.

Part 2

1 ½ cups dried split peas, rinsed

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion (chopped)

2-3 carrots (chopped)

1-2 stalks celery (chopped)

1-2 cloves garlic (minced)

¾ teaspoon chilli powder

¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes

Pepper to taste

2 cups chopped ham

2 cups frozen peas, thawed and pureed in food processor

Add peas to stock (add chicken broth if needed to make about 8 cups of liquid) and heat to boiling.  Boil uncovered for about 2 minutes.  Reduce heat to low and simmer for about 30 minutes.

Saute remaining vegetables with olive oil for about 5 minutes.

Add sautéed vegetables, ham, chilli powder, red pepper flakes and pepper to stock.  Cover and simmer for about 1-1 ½ hours, or until peas are tender.

10 minutes prior to serving, add pureed peas to the soup.  Increase heat to medium-high and heat for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.  Do not overcook the soup at this point.

Serve immediately with warm bread (we had three cheese focaccia bread).

VERDICT:

We loved the soup.  Especially my husband and I.  Our four year old ate it but pretended he didn't like it, though we know that he did.  Adding the pureed peas at the end added a little extra oomph to the flavour, as well as a nice greener colour.  The bread was great for dipping in the soup...yum yum!  I'm looking forward to the leftovers!

Ham and Scalloped Potatoes

In my world, Sunday nights are for "Family Dinner."  Typically it is just me and my three leading men, sometimes there are other family members too.  What that means though is on Sundays, we do a "big" dinner so that we have LEFTOVERS for a day (or two...or three!) afterwards.  Gets me out of cooking at least one night a week ;-)

This week we tackled a huge ham and scalloped potatoes.  The ham we jazzed up with a new glaze recipe that we found, and the scalloped potatoes are a recipe that I clipped in 1997 and am finally giving a try.  Yes, you read that right, 1997.  No, I am not a hoarder...I previously said that I love to clip recipes!

Ham & Glaze

Ham (one of the nicer ones)
1 can Sprite, 7UP or ginger ale

1/3 cup corn syrup (I used light)
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
1/2 cup dark rum
2 teaspoons ground black pepper
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Place ham in a roasting pan and pour Sprite evenly over it.  Cover (with lid or tin foil) and bake for 1 hour. Combine the corn syrup, maple syrup, brown sugar, rum, pepper and lemon juice in a small mixing bowl.  Mix well. After the 1 hour of baking, evenly spoon the glaze over the ham.  Return the ham back to the oven (covered) and bake for another 20-30 minutes, or until the glaze is brown and bubbly.  Remove the ham from the oven and let rest for about 15 minutes before slicing to serve.

Light & Lovely Scalloped Potatoes (From Homemakers, 1997)

Peeled, thinly sliced potatoes (about 4 medium potatoes)
1 cup chopped onion (or more or less to taste)
1/2 cup chicken stock
2 cups milk (I used 1%)
2 tablespoons flour
Pinch allspice
Salt and pepper to taste
3/4 cup cheddar cheese
Paprika

In a large saucepan of boiling, salted water, cook sliced potatoes for 5 minutes ot until slightly tender; drain. 
Meanwhile in large skillet over medium high heat, cook onion in chicken stock for about 4 minutes or until liquid has evaporated.  In bowl, whisk together milk and flour; stir into onions.  Bring to boil, stirring as it thickens; boil gently for 1 minute.  Add allspice and salt and pepper to taste.  Combine sauce and potatoes, mixing gently but thoroughly.  Pour into 8 cup/2 litre casserole.  Cover with lid or foil and bake in 350 F oven or 30 minutes or until potatoes are just tender.  Uncover and sprinkle cheese over top, sprinkle lightly with paprika.  Bake uncovered for 10 minutes or until cheese is melted and top is lightly browned.

VERDICT:
Our four year old could NOT stop eating the ham.  He LOVED it.  Hubby and I both enjoyed the ham and the potatoes.  You could certainly taste the different ingredients in the glaze, which I particularly liked.  There was the sweet, the pepper and the rum flavours - all there and all balanced.