Potato and Ham Chowder

There's this personality test called Myers Briggs.  It shows you how you relate to the world around you.  Introvert/extrovert.  Do you recharge by having alone time or being with others?  Sensing/intuitive.  Do you do well figuring it out or are you better having everything in black and white?  Thinking/feeling.  Head vs heart.  And, judgment/perceptive.  How do you make decisions?  Do you work on consensus then waffle or do you look at the facts and make a decision and stick to it?  I'm absolutely an extrovert.  A party at our house finishes up and I'm dancing around fully charged because I've spent time with SO many people.  Connie has gone to his corner to plug in and recharge.  Please do not disturb.  When it comes to making decisions I do the normal female thing and talk it through with Connie and sometimes my friends.  He takes that to be the judgment side.  It isn't.  Because once I make a decision it's tough to budge me.  That's exactly what happened here.  I read Rebekah's index of soups and stews and knew immediately what I wanted to make.  No reading of other recipes.  No trolling her blog.  Just THE ONE.  Potato and ham chowder. 

I LOVE soup.  Connie, not so much.  Needless to say, I was thrilled to see the subject for this month's Blogger C.L.U.E. Society.  And, I was equally thrilled to see that my assigned blog was Rebekah's.  Let's start with the Albert Einstein quote on her home page:  "There are two ways to live your life.  One as though nothing is a miracle and the other as if everything is a miracle."  That tells me that Rebekah is one of those glass half full search for the good kind of folks. 

Now, I just had to take a peek at some of her recipes to see what else was there.  To give you some good ideas, you know...  Cinnamon pear muffins.   Six flavor bundt cake.  I know, they sound fabulous.  No clue here when I'll need to make a dessert again but the bundt cake will be in the running.  And, the muffins may just get made next week.  Unfortunately, I've cooked for the last time this week...  We've got three theatre dates, a wine education class with appetizers, a farewell party for one of our favorite chefs, a Super Bowl party and a late night for me at my Columbus office.  Grocery shopping for Connie was easy this week - lunch fixings!  Then, there's the cheeseburger potato bacon soup.  It looks a lot like my beloved cheeseburger soup from Scotty's Brewhouse.  I've never added bacon to that and will do so next time I make it.  But, I stuck to my guns and made the potato and ham chowder.  Here's a link to Rebekah's original recipe:  Potato and ham chowder.

I did make one change to the recipe.  Since I regularly save chicken bones to make my own stock, I used chicken stock instead of water and bouillon.  Saves a bunch of sodium too...

What did we think?  This was super flavorful and creamy.  Because Connie loves cheese, I added a bunch of shredded cheddar before serving the soup.  That did up the score for us!

Here's how you make the soup:

Potato and Ham Chowder

Ingredients:

3 1/2 c potatoes, peeled and diced

1/3 c celery, diced

1/3 c onion, finely diced

3/4 c cooked ham, diced

3 1/4 c chicken stock

1/2 t salt, or to taste

1 teaspoon ground pepper, or to taste

5 T butter

5 T all-purpose flour

2 c milk

 

Directions:

 

Add the potatoes, celery, onions, ham and stock to a stockpot.  Cook until the potatoes are tender, about 15 minutes.  In a small saucepan, melt the butter.  Add the flour and cook for about 5 minutes or until the roux is a very light golden brown.  Slowly whisk in the milk.  Once the cream sauce has thickened, pour it into the other mixture.  At this point, you can add herbs to taste.  Or cheese. 


Here are links to the other soups and stews for this month: 

 

• Sue from A Palatable Pastime
• Lauren from Sew You Think You Can Cook
• Rebekah from Making Miracles
• Kathy from A Spoonful of Thyme
• Debra from Eliot's Eats
• Jean from Lemons and Anchovies
• Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Anna from annaDishes
• Lea Ann from Cooking on the Ranch
• Azmina from Lawyer Loves Lunch
• Christy from Confessions of a Culinary Diva
• Lisa from Authentic Suburban Gourmet
• Stacy from Food Lust People Love
• Heather from All Roads Lead to the Kitchen
• Christiane from Taking on Magazines
• Kate from Kate's Kitchen
• Karen from Lavender and Lovage
• Amy from Amy's Cooking Adventures
  

Ham, Brie and Black Raspberry Melts

Connie bought me a new cookbook a couple of weeks ago.  It's all about grilled cheese.  One of my very favorite dishes.  We've always been the type who'd try anything on grilled cheese.  Mix up four different kinds of cheese.  Add salami or pickles.  Add cole slaw.  It's made for some wonderful dishes.  And, some that could best be described as interesting - lol. 

Needless to say, the cookbook got me really hungry for melted cheese.  Brie in particular.  Now, I'm not sure why but that's what it was that I wanted - brie.  I'd also used some black raspberry preserves from Huber Farms for our Fig and Prosciutto Salad.  That meant I had an open jar of fantastic preserves.  Brie and black raspberry.  Hmmm, sounds like a winner to me.  So, what meat would be best?  Ham, of course. 

This morning I packed up food for three meals at the office - pepper steak for an evening meal, ham and brie sandwiches and an oriental chicken salad.  Well, I forgot the waterchestnuts.  Darn the luck.  I'd have to fix the ham and brie sandwiches for lunch.  Actually, timing wise it worked out well because I had a conference call at 11:00 and another coming up at 1:00 so I needed to keep my nose to the grindstone and not spend half an hour in the kitchen chopping oriental veggies...

What did we think?  I almost wish I didn't have the chicken for the salad.  Although I know it's much better for me than another one of these sandwiches, I'd much rather have a repeat of this tomorrow.  But, there's always Thursday, now isn't there?

Ham, Brie and Black Raspberry Melts

Ingredients:

2 slices of bread
6 thin slices of ham
3 thin slices of brie
1 T black raspberry jam

Directions:

Toast the bread.  Schmear on the jam.  Pile on the ham.  Top with the brie slices. 

Broil until the brie is nice and melty but hasn't melted down totally.  Serve warm.
 

Honey Bourbon Glazed Ham Steak

Ham?  Well, not often in my book.  I love a good steak.  Salt, pepper and a bit of Worcestershire in a cast iron skillet.  Connie, he loves a great filet of fish.  Ham?  It rarely graces our table.  I suppose because I make out the menus and it's not something I crave, it rarely gets made.  I try to add in the things Connie craves but this isn't one of them.  So, why in the world did I choose to try this recipe?  I don't know.  It sounded good.  One of the things I really don't like is overly sweet meals.  I love my sister-in-law Pam to pieces.  She has a sweet tooth.  Her favorite birthday dinner is all sweet stuff.  It makes my teeth ache.  I really don't care for the gloppy sweet stuff that's put on hams.  Coke and brown sugar and more sweet stuff than you can shake a stick at.  Yech!  So, the idea of a glaze really attracted me.  And the fact it had garlic and dry mustard in it.  That'd let the ham shine through while providing a bit of moisture.  And, it'd not be too sweet. 

Bingo.  This was everything I'd hoped it would be.  Confession here.  The recipe calls for putting the ingredients through the food processor.  A blender would work equally well.  My counter was packed.  There was not room for the blender or the processor.  My mortal and pestle would have to do.  And, they did.  The garlic wasn't totally blended into the glaze.  That was fine.  Plenty got mushed up and mixed in. 

So, Connie tells me at dinner that he really has never liked ham steak  Oh, okay.  I didn't know that.  But, guess what?  He says he really likes this.  In fact, it's the winner of the evening for him.  Wow.  A super easy entree.  Not terribly expensive - it'll be about $1 per serving.  And, it tasted great.  This is now on my last minute too tired to cook list. 

Honey Bourbon Glazed Ham

Ingredients:
ham steak
3 T honey
2 T bourbon
1 T soy sauce
1/2 t dry mustard
4 large cloves garlic, mashed


Directions:

Blend everything but the ham steak in a blender or food processor.  Either grill or broil.  Brush glaze on the side toward the heat. 

Turn after about 4-5 minutes.  Brush more glaze on the side that's now toward the heat.  Turn after about 3 minutes. 

Brush glaze on again.  Remove from the heat in about 2 minutes.