Leftover Makeover Ham and Brie Sandwiches with Pasta Salad

I made a spiral ham on Sunday, then I cut up the remainder of the meat and froze most of it to use in soups and beans throughout winter. I kept one portion of it out of the freezer though for last nights dinner. We had a ham, brie, and bleu cheese sandwich with a really great pasta salad. We had the left over pasta salad for lunch today and it was still very good.

Ham, Brie & Blue Sandwiches

8 slices thick French country sandwich white bread, sliced
8 ounces Brie cheese, sliced
1/2 cup apricot preserves
1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
2 cups of leftover ham (or steaks)
Preheat grill to medium heat or a grill pan until very hot. (or  you can just use a normal pan... that is what I did)
[1] Layer the brie on half of the bread slices. Spread with apricot preserves and crumbed blue cheese.
[2] Grill the ham steak until browned and heated through, about 3 minutes per side. Remove the ham from the grill and cut into portions (one for each sandwich.) Layer the ham over the brie. Top ham with the remaining bread slices to make sandwiches.
[3] Brush both sides of sandwiches with olive oil and grill until the bread is toasted and the cheese is melted.

Pasta Salad with Feta and Snow Peas

Prep and cook time: 25 minutes
10 ounces elbow macaroni
1/2 cup snap peas, strings removed, sliced diagonally into strips
1 yellow bell pepper , ribs and seeds removed, chopped into pieces
2 green onions , sliced
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
coarse salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
[1] In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta until cooked through but still firm to the bite. During last minute of cooking, add snow peas. Drain pasta and peas in a colander; rinse under cold water.
[2] In a large bowl, combine pasta and peas, bell pepper, green onions, feta, oil, vinegars and salt and pepper. Toss to combine and chill until ready to serve.

Why I do What I do

I am not sure if I posted before why I feel the way that I do about family dinners but there are a few factors involved.

1. This was how my husband and myself were raised. We both had parents that worked (mine had a double income home) and some how both our moms found a way to make dinner every night, and we all as a family sat at the table ate, and discussed our day. I never knew any different. It wasn't until I became a teacher that I realized that this isn't the norm anymore.
2. As a teacher to middle school students I have conversations, very candid conversations, all the time about how they wish they could talk more with their parents. Wished that their mom cooked them dinners. That they wished they had family game night. I know right? Shocked? I have so many kids tell me that at home all they do is yell at each other, and this consists of the communication skills they are building at home? What is wrong with this picture? It is such a simple thing to fix a meal and to more importantly all take the time to sit down and eat together and discuss your day.
3. The facts and statistics are out there to support it.
Evidence links family dinners to healthier life choices:

• Research from Columbia University’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse suggests that kids who eat family dinners get better grades in school, develop communication skills and are less likely to try drugs.
• The American Dietetic Association found women who cook regularly consume a more nutritious diet than those that eat out often.
• Pediatrics found kids who ate dinner with their family regularly were less likely to be obese. (Facts taken from healthymonday.org) 

Need more reasons? It makes me feel good to fix a meal my family enjoys. It makes me proud when my daycare provider says my daughter is such a  good eater. I love that she loves Chinese, Thai and Japanese. I love that she loves Mexican, and will eat fish when even her mom can't eat it :-). That I have a two year old that will eat most things I put in front of her (and even if she doesn't like them right away she will try them). I couldn't say those things if I didn't make the small effort that I have since she has been eating solids.

Ham, Potatoes Au Gratin, Roasted Carrots (Step Away from the Box #3)

My daughter loves meat, I am a little concerned about it. She eats her veggies but not nearly as much as she used to. And she isn't eating nearly as much veggies as she is her meat! Needless to say she loved this dinner. Of course I knew that she would because she ate almost all of her Papa's ham steak at breakfast one morning. The ham has been taking up room in my freezer for awhile so I thought, what they hey, lets eat that thing. Let's have a good old 1950's Sunday Super. Actually I am feeling like this could be a new "tradition" we'll see if it pans out, but it has me inspired to think of good old fashioned Sunday Supper recipes. I feel a roasted chicken coming on, pot roast, etc... Sounds fantastic to me! Plus it could leave us with leftovers to have throughout the week right? Again we will see, but back to the meal. The ham, was a spiral ham that is popular during Christmas time, which doesn't take much finesse. The potatoes were super easy. They need a bit of tweaking but overall with my mandolin they were so easy! I used one of my roasting pans, sliced the potato on a mandolin, melted some butter and garlic in a sauce pan and set them in the oven.

Easy Potatoes Au Gratin (no need to use the box)
5 Yukon gold potatoes, 1/8 inch thick
1 cup milk
2 tbsp butter
1 garlic clove
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese
1. Preheat oven to 350. Slice potatoes (mandolin or food processor makes this an easy task)
2. In an organized pattern lay the potatoes down in two layers. Salt and pepper the layer, sprinkle some of the cheese, and ladle a bit of milk mixture. Keep layering like a lasagna, till all potatoes are used (I did three layers in mine) with milk.
3. Bake for 20 minutes with tin foil cover, then take cover off so the top layer becomes golden brown.

*I plan on making this again but with more milk (we thought it was a bit dry, still good, but a bit dry).

Chocolate Chip & Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

Regular Awesome Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe here but I added peanut butter chips as well. I would say if I make these again more peanut butter chips less chocolate chips. The key to these cookies are ice cream scooper for even cookies (they come out round and perfect every time) and then also the AirBake baking tray lined with parchment paper or a silpat.

Chocolate Chip & Peanut Butter Chip Cookies
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 egg
2 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup peanut butter chips
1/4 cup chocolate chips
*Nuts optional (husband prefers nuts, but Walnuts do funny things to my mouth)
1. Preheat oven 375 degrees. Cream sugars and butter  together. Add egg and mix well.
2. Add dry ingredients. Then chips.
3. Bake for 9 minutes, then let them sit on the tray for 2 minutes before moving them to a wire rack.

Perfect cookies every time!

Menu Plan Monday

Sunday: Spiral Ham, homemade scalloped potatoes, salad
Monday: Chili Cheese Sloppy Joes and Honey Lime Coleslaw
Tuesday:Ham brie and blue sandwiches, pasta salad with feta and snow peas
Wednesday: Japanese Grilled Chicken, orzo edamame salad
Thursday: Linguine with beef ragu (frozen from a previous post - might make fresh pasta here depends on if I am into it!), cucumber garden salad
Friday: Slow cooker roasted rosemary chicken, savory new potatoes
Saturday: Soy and Ginger steak salad, Japanese noodles

Orange Chicken with Peppers and Onions - Quick trick for rice!

This was last nights quick meal, and it was very tasty. I just stir fried some chicken breast, onions and red & orange peppers then topped it with Panda Express Orange Chicken Sauce (a great thing to have on hand for quick meals) and I made some Jasmine rice.

I can remember an incident a couple of weeks ago where I wasn't hungry because I was sick and I didn't know what to make for Brian and Molly. For whatever reason I ended up making some rice upon Brian's request (and I didn't eat it, again sick one here) and he wasn't that enthused about it. I remember asking what was up because he was the one that requested it and he said it was over-cooked. Now, ladies it was one of those moments when you don't feel well yet you go out of your way for your family and then you get repaid with negativity which makes it even BETTER!

But any way moral of the story, that statement stuck with me, until the other day I was watching a show on The Cooking Channel and they were talking about the proper technique for cooking rice. You have to rinse it! I didn't go to the extremes of a sushi maker or anything (they wash the rice several times and literally scrub it and go through a HUGE process to get it to come out the way you like, think about that the next time you eat sushi!) I digress, the point is that if you rinse some of the starch off it allows it to cook in a single grain so you avoid a big ball of mushy rice. Works wonders!

New bentos

Sorry for the lack of posts this week but we have been hit with high humidity and hot weather, at the end of SEPTEMBER! My house has been 80 degrees when I get home after work and I have no been inclined to toil over a hot stove. So we have been having sandwiches and there really is only so many times I can post a picture about that!

The bento below for Molly has some pizza squares, & CSA apple slices on the top tier. On the bottom a few candy pumpkins, goldfish crackers, honey mustard pretzel pieces, carrot slices, and banana chips.

 In this lock and lock box bento we have some turkey pieces underneath the cheese flower cut outs (I think that is turkey underneath there!) and some celery pieces -Miss Molly apparently loved these because they were all gone when I opened it up to clean- some dried fruit medley (banana chips on the bottom, dried mango -Molly thinks these are candy, well honestly Mom kind of told her they were candy which I sort of feel bad about, but they are sweet like candy and I didn't want her eating too many of them. And then apple rings). Rolled out bread with some Nutela, then rolled up and cut into pieces. This was the first time she has ever had Nutela (a personal favorite of mine) and I wasn't there at daycare to really jazz it up for her and imagine my surprise when they were completely uneaten when I went to pick her up. What kid doesn't want to eat Nutela rolls? I then proceeded to get her to try and them and told them they were chocolate. WHOA! Did that change the tune. So needless to say it isn't just in how it is packaged for Molly, it is also how mom sells it.