Scalloped Potatoes and Ham

Also known as "leftover Easter Ham".

Ingredients
6 medium potatoes - I think we only had 3, so ours might not have been as full as it calls for, and I'm pretty sure we didn't half the recipe. Although my husband started this and I finished it, so it's possible I'm just totally off base.
3 tbsp butter, separate, melted
3/4 cup soft bread crumbs
1/2 tsp paprika
1/8 tsp dried thyme
2 tbsp flour
1 tsp mustard powder
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1 cup potato water (saved)
1 cup milk or light cream - We used whole milk, thank you Emery!
2 cups ham cooked and cubed - Thank you Easter!
4 ounces cheddar cheese

Cook potatoes, pared and sliced in boiling, salted water for 10-15 minutes or til tender. Drain, reserving 1 cup cooking liquid. Place potatoes in 9x13 baking dish. Melt 1 tbsp butter, toss with bread crumbs, paprika and thyme. Set aside. Melt 2 tbsp butter in sauce pan, then blend in flour, mustard, salt and pepper. Add reserved potato liquid and milk. Cook and stir til thickened and bubbly. Stir in ham and cheese, one cup at a time. Cook til cheese is melted. Pour sauce over potatoes. Sprinkle with crumbs. Cover and bake at 350 for 1 hour.

We did the potatoes the night before, then I pre-chopped everything that afternoon. It was really easy to put together an hour before dinner.

Flaxseed Tip

I know I've mentioned a bit before how flaxseed is an easy addition to punch up the health of your meal. In last month's Reader's Digest, there was an article all about the great benefits of flaxseed and they had some suggestions for using it. I used one, and it was so easy. I thought I'd share it with you as well some reminders of nice and simple ways to add flaxseed in your meals and snacks.

Sprinkle it on your peanut butter when making a pb&j. I put mine together and then remembered to take a picture, so it's on both sides. But I originally just covered my peanut butter in it and then closed it to eat. I couldn't taste any difference.

Other great and easy ways to use flaxseed:

breadings (for fish or chicken)

any red sauce (chili, spaghetti)

sprinkle it in yogurt

blend in a smoothie

add to muffins

I'm sure there are a million other ways to use it? Are there any that you've used that I didn't list?

Sheila Salad

This salad is named for our good friend Sheila who used to make this for us all the time in Missoula. After living in Kalispell for a while, she came up here to visit her sister and we all had lunch together and she made her classic salad. We realized how much we missed it and started making it for our family too!

Ingredients
Lettuce - I like using spinach and a spring mix. But you can use Romaine, or even Iceberg if that's your thing.
Tomatoes, chopped - If I could, I'd always use cherry tomatoes, quartered.
Cucumbers, chopped
Bell peppers, chopped
Colby Jack Cheese, cubed
Carrots, chopped
Optional: bacon bits, green onions, croutons, cubed ham, hard boiled eggs, etc.

This is a real, make it how you like it salad. What we love most about it is the variety of things to put in it, and we make it quite chunky. This way the flavors are a lot stronger. We're also fans of the colby cubes. We just had this for a birthday dinner with a medium-sized group of family and had everything in separate containers so everyone could literally create their own salad with the fixings they like best. This salad's a big hit with our family, and we just love it.

Italian Chicken

This is another "spice up this recipe so dinner's not so boring" recipe. 

Ingredients
Chicken - I cut mine up into tenders
1 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp Alpine Touch (all-purpose seasoning with salt, pepper, onion, garlic)
2 tsp italian seasoning
sprinkle of paprika

Honestly, I'm not sure exactly what I put in this. I wanted something light, and it was. I recall being pleased so I took a picture. But this is the general idea.

Make your flour and seasoning mixture. Coat chicken in the mixture. Spray a pan with cooking spray and put over medium heat. When hot, add a tbsp of oil and toss in the chicken. Cook until done.

We just had a simple light dinner with some butter noodles, chicken and veggies. It's not really overly flavorful. (Although that would be easy enough to change.) But it was something I just put together, and I'm always pleased when something I make up actually tastes good. This breading was my inspiration.

Toasted Spiced Ham Drizzled in Honey

This Easter, I got excited about making some traditional foods. Mostly because I don't know much about the "traditional" foods. I'm not a real holiday food person, outside of candy canes, candy corn and jelly beans. So I found a recipe on foodnetwork.com for a traditional Easter ham, and this is what I found.

Ingredients

1 boneless country ham
2 cups honey, for glazing ham
2 tablespoons Toasted Spice Rub recipe below- The recipe makes 1 cup. DO NOT use the entire 1 cup. 
1 tablespoon thyme, chopped fine
6 celery stalks

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.  Place ham on an open brown paper bag for easy clean up. With the tip of a paring knife carefully score a 1-inch grid pattern around the outside of the ham. Brush the entire surface of the meat on all sides with some of the honey. Season the entire surface of the meat on all sides with the toasted spice rub and thyme. Add about a half cup of water to the base of the roaster. Place ham on several celery sticks in the roasting pan. Cook for 1 hour. Every 15 minutes, baste ham with juices that collect in the base of the roaster and the honey. Let rest for 15 minutes before carving as desired.

Toasted Spice Rub:
1/4 cup fennel seeds
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 tablespoon peppercorns
1 1/2 teaspoons red pepper flakes
1/4 cup (1-ounce) pure California sweet chili powder*
2 tablespoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

Toast the fennel seeds, coriander seeds, and peppercorns in a small, heavy pan over medium heat. (Toasting freshens spices, releases their oils, and makes them more fragrant, as well as adding a new dimension of flavor.) When the fennel turns light brown, work quickly. Turn on the exhaust fan; add the red pepper flakes, and toss, toss, toss, always under the fan. Immediately turn the spice mixture out onto a plate to cool. Put in a blender with the sweet chili powder, salt, and cinnamon and blend until the spices are evenly ground.
If you have a small spice mill blender or a coffee grinder dedicated to grinding spices, grind only the fennel, coriander, pepper, and chili flakes. Pour into a bowl and toss with the remaining ingredients. Keep the spice mix in a glass jar in a cool, dry place, or freeze.

*Chef's Tip: Taste your chili powder and, if spicy and hot, cut back the amount. California chiles are almost sweet, not hot.

So I forgot to take my camera to the dinner, and didn't take a picture until after we got home and my hubs rinsed it off. I realized, just now, that I used the entire 1 cup of seasoning mix instead of 2 tbsp. Our ham still tasted good, but there was a lot of seasoning on it. You can see a little bit on the stump there what the seasoning rub looks like. I know my ham is in a shape not really natural to the nature of ham, but it was the cheapest I could find, and that's what we could afford. Looking back, I think if I had read the recipe properly, this would've been an even greater success than it was. Because it was a success. Unless everyone was lying so as not to hurt my feelings. Anyway, it was good, and the ham was used in recipes to follow. So keep an eye out.

Chili Upgrade

So we were making our normal chili but really wanted to make it a bit tastier, give it a little upgrade. So we combined it with the recipe for our white chicken chili and came up with something pretty yummy. It was kind of an on the fly recipe change, so bear with me. But I can still remember the gist of how we changed it. I know we started out with the original recipe.

Ingredients

1 lb. lean ground beef (or turkey)
1/2 onion, chopped
1 green sweet pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced (Can't go wrong with more garlic either)
1 15-oz can dark red kidney beans, rinsed and drained (may use dried beans)
1 14 ½ oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained
1 8 oz. can tomato sauce
2-3 tsp chili powder
1 tsp dried basil, crushed
1/2 cup flax seed

Then we added some bits from the white chicken chili.
1 can of kernel corn

1 (4oz) cans diced green chiles
1 tbs ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano

I want to say that was most of the additions.

Brown meat, chop veggies, toss it all in a crockpot and cook on high for 4-5 hours. You can saute your veggies before hand if you want to, as well.

Bam chicken

This is another thing we make on the fly. It's so simple, but I couldn't help but share it because it really does turn out great.

Ingredients
Chicken - However much you have on hand that's thawed and ready to be cooked for dinner
Bam - Use as liberally as you'd like

You can leave the chicken as breasts, or whatever cut you have, or you can cut them up into tenders or smaller, chicken nugget-type bites. Sprinkle Bam on your chicken, coating both sides, then cook in a frying pan with a little oil. Voila.

Excuse the lovely photo. I think we were already done with dinner, when I thought to myself, "I should post our Bam chicken." and took a lovely photo of the chicken serving plate, completely with bam-colored oil and juices. It's so simple and is packed with flavor. A great chicken addition on the fly.