Bulk Cooking and OAMC

Savory Pork ChopsI have posted before about freezer cooking and OAMC (Once a Month Cooking) which I continue to do. I always field questions about how I do things or for more ideas. Today I was inspired to post a couple pictures of the dish I was making for our upcoming freezer trade.

I found a recipe for Savory Pork Chops, which is pork chops dredged in a flour and dried mustard mixture, slightly browned, and then marinaded in a sauce (mustard, orange marmalade, soy sauce, onion). Since we have four families in our club, I wanted to average about eight smaller portions per family. Pricing out pre-cut pork chops was spendy. I decided to buy a very large pork loin on sale for $12.00 and cut my own. I ended up with eight, good sized-fairly thick chops per family. This means there maybe leftovers and more than one meal out of this one dish. When you break that down, it’s $3.00 for a family meal. Most of the ingredients for the sauce I had, but I bought a jar of orange marmalade and then used part of it for a different recipe (Orange Ginger Chicken).

002Not only is the meal inexpensive and tasty, all that is left to be done is dump it from a bag into the oven or crockpot!

101 Things to Do With a Ham

glazing the hamOk, well maybe I don’t have a total of 101 things to do with a ham, but I’ve come up with some great ideas to use up a ham this week.

When ham was on special at Easter-time, I bought the largest spiral ham I could find. I stuck it in the freezer until today.

Little does the ham know the plans I have for it. Shhh. Read on, but don’t tell the ham.

 

 

 

Tuesday:  Bake and eat with garlic mashed potatoes and grilled sweet potatoes

Wednesday: Use leftover ham slices with swiss cheese to fill homemade Chicken Cordon Bleu, over rice.

Wednesday: Make double batch of Chicken Cordon Bleu to deliver to friends who just had a baby.

Wednesday: Use some ham to grind with pickles and onion to make a sandwich spread for the kids to pack in their school lunches this week.

Thursday: Scalloped potatoes and ham. Make a double batch and freeze one pan for another day when I have less time to cook.

Friday: Use the ham bone and dried beans to make a homemade Bean and Ham soup all day in the crockpot. Bake fresh bread to eat with the soup.

Friday: Later, while watching movies, make a veggie/cracker/meat platter for snacks, using up leftover ham spread on crackers.

Saturday: Compost the ham bone.