Since ham is a hands-down classic for Easter dinner, you might have some waiting in your refrigerator right this very minute that needs to be “got at.”
By this point, though, there might not be all that much of it left, and what there is might be kind of, uh, scraggly. Scrappy, you’d have to say. Too much to pitch, but what to do with the too little? Still some yummy eating there, after all.
Because Daddy was such a ham lover (any time, any way), and our mom such a marvelous cook and make-doer, my sister and I tucked into her ham leftovers enough times to qualify (to us, anyway) as almost beyond belief. But believe it — never once did they fail to make the first ham go-round, no matter how delicious, pale by comparison.
We’d have a pot of what was called, at our house, ham and bean-ders, or maybe a batch of homemade split pea soup. Lopped or chopped, heavenly ham gravy served over homemade waffles or biscuits (eggs, too, of course) was a favorite and sumptious supper. Or breakfast, for that matter. Ground ham for sandwiches, minced for scrambled eggs. And so on and so forth.
The one thing we never, ever had, though, was ham in a casserole. Casseroles didn’t exist in our world at that time, had basically, so far as I know, never been heard of by anybody in my family. Or neighborhood, either, come to think of it.
Men wouldn’t have eaten them, so women would never have fixed them. Not more than once, anyway. And that’s the flat-out truth.
Still and all, I’m pretty sure that if there could possibly be an exception to that particular dinner-in-a-dish possibility, ham-loving Daddy would have been a fan of today’s recipe. Oddly enough, it’s nothing new, it’s old. What’s more, it’s one of the most-requested after-Easter recipes we’ve ever run.
And there’s a reason for that. Lots of reasons, actually, starting with the fact that this is a perfect way to use up those little bits, pieces and awkward chunks still there when the nice slices are all gone.
Then, too, it not only readily lends itself to fooling with, it practically begs you to go for it. As long as you allow for plenty of the soup mixture to wet everything down enough, jump right in there and adjust the amounts of other ingredients to your own personal taste.
At our house, for instance, we hold onto the equal amounts of ham and cheese, but decrease the green pepper a bit and, since we’re die-hard horseradish hounds, really boost the amount of that. A good hefty dose of pepper goes in there, too.
Up the take of this or that, in other words, or downplay it. Up to you, as long as you have enough of the sauce.
In case you missed this comfy casserole’s appearances in this column before, or have misplaced it since then, here it is again, as taken from my elderly copy of Peg Bracken’s “I Hate to Cook Book,” as last reprinted in the Forum on April 9, 2007:
Peg Bracken’s Judy O’Grady’s ham
1/2pound leftover cooked ham
1/2pound sharp cheddar cheese
1green bell pepper
1/2teaspoon salt
1teaspoon horseradish
1can condensed cream of mushroom, chicken or celery soup
1/4cup milk
2cups egg noodles, cooked according to package directions, drained well
Bread crumbs
Butter
Grind ham, cheese and green pepper, then add the salt, horseradish and soup thinned with milk.
Whistling cheerily, you may now mix everything together, including the noodles, but except for the crumbs and butter, and bake it, covered, in a buttered casserole at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Then remove the cover, sprinkle some crumbs on it, dot with butter, and brown under the broiler.
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