The Best Ever Ham and Cheese Sliders!

Missy Tippens, The Belle, here. My kids came home from a Christmas party at a friend's house and raved about these sandwiches. So I texted their friend's mom for this recipe. And yes, it's definitely something to rave about! I loved it.

NOTE: This recipe calls for letting the sandwiches, once assembled, sit for 4-24 hours! And no, I didn't see this note until I had hungry kids waiting to eat. :)

Ingredients:
1 package Sweet Hawaiian Rolls
1 lb. deli sliced ham
6 slices Swiss cheese
½ cup butter melted
3 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
2 Tbs. Mustard
2 Tbs. brown sugar
¼ ts. onion powder

My friend sent me an Instagram photo of the ingredients, and it came from this website: http://joyfulmommaskitchen.com/hawaiian-slider-sandwiches/

I baked these on a jelly roll pan.

Cut the rolls in half. Put bottom half in the pan. Layer the bread with the ham and cheese and then put the tops on the rolls.

Whisk together all other ingredients and spread over the top of the sandwiches.

Like I said, the recipe called for covering with plastic wrap and refrigerating for at least 4 hours, or even overnight to let the liquid soak in.

So being the REBEL that I am (ha!), I went ahead and baked at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. They still turned out YUMMY! Golden and buttery and gooey with melted cheese! You need to try these for your next party.

 

www.missytippens.com

Ham - or whatever - Puffs

Jan here, with a startling announcement. I've been eating less sugar lately, and one of the side effects is that sweet things just don't taste as good anymore. I never would have believed it, but I can actually pass by a plate of fudge without taking a piece!

My daughter's list of goodies for last weekend's baking extravaganza.
All sweet, like her :)

I haven't decided if that's a good side effect, or a bad one. I'll let you decide.

BUT, when I do find myself craving goodies, I'm likely to choose something savory, and sinfully delicious, like these Ham Puffs.

The great thing about these things is that they don't have to be made with ham. You can use chicken. Or mushrooms. Or ham and mushrooms. Or whatever.

You can even turn them into a sweet treat by adding in some sugar and chocolate. For coffee lovers, add some coffee to the mix, and stir some chocolate chips into the cream cheese. Or - wait for it - add some strawberry jam! Or whatever :) Just be sure to leave out the onion and hot sauce if you're going to make them sweet!

So, here we go.

Ham Puffs

Ingredients:
4 ounces cream cheese, cubed
1 can deviled ham (or deli ham, chopped fine)
1 Tablespoon minced onion
1/8 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
1 tube crescent roll dough

Notice supper cooking in the crock-pot...chicken for chicken tacos!
And I was going to add the mushrooms to the ham puffs, but they were voted down
by my mushroom-hating family :(

Mix the cream cheese and other ingredients (except crescent roll dough) together. You can do it by hand (that's what I did), or you can use a blender or food processor.

Don't forget the hot pepper sauce. We have several varieties around our house, but this is the one I used:

Unroll the crescent roll dough and separate into four rectangles.

Spread 1/4 of the cream cheese mixture on each rectangle and roll up jelly-roll style, from the long edge.

Cut each roll into five slices...

 ...and place them on an un-greased baking sheet. Bake at 425° for 8-10 minutes or until puffed and golden brown.

Let them cool slightly before serving.

Thatcher wanted to try one. Or twenty. But we said "no."

So sorry this picture is slightly blurry - but have you ever tried to get
a seven-month-old puppy to sit still?

Wynter didn't even ask. She knew better. What a wise dog she is. She's turning nine years old this week!

What does your Christmas-goodie-baking list look like? If your house is like mine, things get eaten almost as quickly as they're made!

Have a good week!

49th Annual Ham and Egg Supper!

Missy, here. I wanted to share one of our church's traditions with you today. This past Wednesday, we had our 49th Annual Ham & Egg Supper!

First, on Tuesday, volunteers start by trimming the ham.

Which, by the way, is country ham. For those who don't know, it's salt cured, not your regular baked fresh ham. I LOVE country ham, but I usually love it best if it's soaked a bit to get some of the salt out. Something my dad always does to help cut the saltiness is to cook it in Coke. It cooks down and makes a nice glaze.

Here are a few of the volunteers cutting out the bones and trimming off the extra fat.

And this fat is not wasted! Yes, it's cooked and packed to give away. This fried, crispy meat/fat is called cracklin'. 

 Here they are just thrown in the pot.

And now just about cooked down.

Then they package them up to give away! We don't waste any of it. :)

One of my jobs, along with my United Methodist Women's circle is to wrap silverware, fill salt and pepper shakers and decorate the tables. Here are some of the beautiful center pieces my friend Jan put together...

And here, we're all done wrapping.

I don't have photos, but there are volunteers who bake biscuits and cook grits. Also those who crack a gazillion eggs. That used to be one of my jobs until I got too busy with after school activities with my kids. I have to admit, it makes it tough to eat eggs the next day after working with them!

Here is some of the country ham cooking.

Here are some of the cooks. This is for the dine-in food. The carry-out food was cooked in another kitchen on the other side of the church near where they do drive through--handing it out of a window! :)

Stirring up some of those many cracked, fresh eggs.

Pouring them into the griddle (a huge flat top cooker)... YUM. I love scrambled eggs.

Here's the beginning of the serving line when we first opened at 4:30. Volunteers on the right. Hungry folks on the left.

 One of my jobs is to take warm biscuits around to the tables offering seconds (and thirds and fourths). I must've served dozens to people who were gobbling them up with the yummy homemade apple jelly--compliments of our youth minister along with some youth who helped him make it!

Here's hubby's plate. Had to snap the shot since I forgot and had already dug in on my plate!  :) One thing he doesn't have that I did is red-eye gravy on the grits. For those who've never heard of it, you make it with drippings from the cooked ham and...coffee! Yes, coffee and fat. Believe it or not, it's very, very tasty!

We had a hugely successful night! Between the dine-in and the carry-out, we served over 1200 meals! A fun community event that's also a fundraiser for our men's and women's groups. I'm always amazed at how our volunteers come together, pitch in, and pull this off. Maybe all of you can come next year as we celebrate our 50th Ham & Egg Supper!

Missy
www.missytippens.com

Ham and the end of the world

Hellloooooo, everybody!!! The Fresh Pioneer is back and I have nothing really fresh to tempt you. Nor any sugar. Nor any handsome men.

No, wait, that last one I can probably remedy.

 

hahahaha! Isn't that great! Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Darcy in the 2005 'Pride and Prejudice'.... but he's texting! *smirkle*

 

 I'm not a huge fan of that movie, but I did just give away a copy on my blog to celebrate my 3,000th sale of 'Pride, Prejudice, and Cheese Grits'. Yay!

And then Vince Mooney gave it a hilarious write-up on 'The Philosophy of Romance' here. I just love that guy. My favorite line? "To begin with, I think this title is a great example why editors don’t let writers choose their own titles."

(Let me just say, I have no idea why the fonts have just gone wonky. I blame Vince. That makes much more sense than considering the possibility that I can't even handle blog fonts. *sigh*)

ANYHOO, Yes, it's been a fun week, and Spring is here and life is wonderful, despite having the head cold from Hades.
Honestly, I forgot what it's like to be sick. I'm never sick. You know, that sort of never that's really ALMOST NEVER. *sigh*
But I did manage to cook a little. Well, I always cook because I like to eat. And my husband likes to eat and all those kids... yes... like to eat.

 

Irma S. Rombauer wrote in the Joy of Cooking that "one definition of eternity is a ham and two people."
We have more than two people in this house, but there is something about left-over ham that makes me wonder what we can possibly do, besides eat cold ham sandwiches for the entire week.
I remembered a  friend of mine made a delicious quiche with a grated potato crust and I wondered if that might be one possible reincarnation of Easter ham. So, we set to work...

My kids had a great time grating potatos, with the skins. Here's approximately seven potatoes, or 6 cups. I think the original recipe was 3 cups of hasbrowns per pie plate. You can use prepared hashbrowns. Add 1/2 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp of pepper and 4 TBS of melted butter. I was wary of adding salt because I knew the ham would be salty.

(Oh, excuse me. We have a call. A very important call on the banana phone. See his brother giving him the 'whaddya doing' look. Big brothers have no appreciation for the importance of produce communication. One must answer, speak politely, and pass it to the mother... who then must answer, listen intently, and take instructions for a play date at the park. That is the way of the banana phone.)

After pressing the grated potatoes into your pie pan (it covered several pie pans and one small casserole dish), put in an oven that has warmed to 450F, for about 20 minutes. I was afraid it would burn so I took it out as soon as the crust was cooked, but the edges were only slightly crispy at 15 minutes. Next time I might leave it longer. I nibbled just a bit at it and YUMMY. Anyway, we're tryin to use up the ham...

Lay cooked ham in the bottom of the potato crust.

About 3 cups of cheddar cheese. The original recipe was 1 1/2 cups of cheese, but I was making a big batch. Add 8 eggs and 1 cup milk (or 4 eggs and 1/2 cup milk). Mix well. Add 1/2 tsp salt a dash of tabasco sauce, and sprinkle of pepper.

Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes until puffy. I was afraid this would spill over, so I set it on a cookie sheet. But everything was fine. I think, all in all, I prefer this potato crust over the usual quiche crust, but I might make a more traditional Quiche Lorraine (with Swiss cheese). It seemed very cheesey with the cheddar. The kids devoured it, and husband ate it (that's all we can ask for, he's not a fan of cheese), but I'm imagining broccoli-Swiss-mushroom version in my future.

  One more picture to lighten your day...

 

Awwww. Such nice eyes. :)

 

 

And now I must be off. Someone is calling on my banana phone. I wonder who it is? And after we're done, I'll be singing this song by Raffi. Click it. You won't be sorry. Unless it gets stuck in your head...

 Until next time! And Edna waves hello! She's made a wonderful friend and they will be taking over the blog next week to show off their skillz in the kitchen. It's a combined effort... No, I'm not telling, so stop asking.