Ham Bowls

This is an idea that I'd been thinking of for a while.  It's basically a breadbowl, but instead of using bread, using ham.  Since ham and cheese go together like ham and cheese, I opted to go with a broccoli cheese soup for the filling of the bowl.

Ingredients:

1 Precooked Ham

1 Stick Butter

1 Onion

1 Bag Chopped Broccoli

1 32 oz Box Vegetable Broth

2 cups Milk

1 1/2 pint Carton of Heaving Whipping Cream

1 tblspoon Minced Garlic

1lb Bag Shredded Cheddar

Instructions:

Cut the ham in half

Using a spoon (or other scooping device) scoop out the innards of the ham

Be careful not to puncture the walls or floor of the bowl, as this would ruin it's capacity as a bowl

Repeat with the other half of the ham

Weigh the bowls

Bake at 350 degrees for 10minutes per pound

Chop the onion

Add the butter and the onion to a pot

Cook on high for a minute

Add the broccoli, broth, milk, cream, and garlic

Bring to a boil

Reduce heat

Gradually stir in the cheese

Remove the hams from the oven

Drain the ham juices that had pooled in the bottom of the bowls

Spoon the soup into the bowl

This turned out better than I'd expected, but worse than I'd hoped.  The soup actually turned out extremely well.  Despite my attempt at adding the cheese gradually, it still wound up not quite melting evenly, but it was still delicious.  The ham bowl on the other hand was more questionable.  The ham itself turned out fairly well, and the bowl actually worked as a bowl (closer to cup in terms of soup holding capacity), but the ham bowl didn't turn out to be equal to the sum of its parts.  Mostly because even after scooping out a large potion of it, it's still a lot of ham.  Like, a lot of ham.  And you get to it after you've already had a cup of soup or two.  But partially because it's just a lot of ham.  Eating the whole bowl was a mistake, and not something that I'd recommend to anyone.  Which is why when I ate the second bowl, I didn't eat the whole thing, and rather just ate the walls of the bowl.  Which was still a decent amount of ham.  After only the base was left, I cut it in half to make two thick slices of ham, which I then used for sandwiches.  Even after if was cut in half, the base was still enough ham to be a bit much on the sandwiches.  Because it was a lot of ham.

Beers, Brats, Battlestar Galactica

It'd been a while since I'd had brats, and while I was at the store picking up the ingredients for the next recipe and saw a pack of cheddar and beer brats I'd decided to go ahead and pick it up, along with some stuff to go with it.

Ingredients:

1 Package of Tailgate Cheddar and Beer Brats

1 Yellow Onion

1 Orange Pepper
3 12oz Cans of Beer
1 Package of Brat Buns
Mustard
Relish

Instructions:

Brown the brats in a pan

Slice the onion

Add the brats and half of the onion to the slowcooker

Cook on low for 4-6 hours, or 2-4 on high

Slice the pepper

Pan fry the pepper and remaining onion

Add the mustard and relish to the bun

Add brat to the bun

Top with slowcooker onions and pepper and onion mix

This turned out fairly well, but beer brats usually work out fairly well.  There were a couple of things that I could have done better though.  I didn't really notice the cheese in the brats, but that might have just been due to the manner of cooking not being conducive to cheddar brats, or that there was just too much other stuff going on.  I probably didn't need the pepper and onion mix in addition to the beer onions.  Speaking of those, I forgot the first rule of slowcookers when making these.  I put the onions on top of the brats instead of below, so they didn't wind up fully cooked and were still a bit on the hard side.  I probably could have made do with only two cans of beer, which would have left another to be disposed of by other means.

Steakless Meltsican

This meal was built from the ground up in order to accommodate an ingredient that wound up not being included in the final meal at all.  I went to the grocery store to find some stuff to cook, and the first thing I got to was a cooler containing BOGO steaks.  I figured that this wasn't an opportunity that I should ignore, so I picked up two.  The initial plan was to eat one as steak, and then build a meal around the other, so I picked up a marinade spice mix.  Knowing that steak goes well in Mexican, and Mexican-Inspired cuisine, I picked up ingredients for a Mexican-Inspired meal.  When I got home, I realized that instead of that, I could eat both steaks as steaks.  So that is what I wound up doing.

Ingredients:

1 package of Knorr Spanish Rice

1 can of refried beans

1 block of Manchego Quesadilla Melting Cheese

1 7 oz can of Hot Salsa Casera

1 bag of frozen onions and peppers

2 flash frozen chicken breasts

Chili powder

Cumin

Smoked paprika

Instructions:

Thaw chicken

Begin cooking spanish rice according to instructions

Cube chicken

Add chicken and onion/pepper mix to a pan

Add spices and cook over medium heat

Pour can of refried beans into a pan and begin cooking over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally

Cut cheese into chunks

Add chunked cheese and salsa to a small pot and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently

Continue cooking and stirring

Plate chicken/veggies, "rice", and beans

Pour Queso over the plate

This turned out fantastically.  It's hard to go wrong with some cheesy goodness, and using the manchego resulted in a higher quality queso than what I usually make.  I'd initially planned on adding a can of corn to the chicken mix, but there wasn't enough room in the pan.  The refried beans weren't actually in my initial plan, but I discovered that I'd had them when I went to add some oil to the chicken pan.  So I effectively traded a can of refried beans for a can of corn, which worked out.  I'd forgotten that the Knorr Spanish rice is mostly noodles, which worked out well for eating this on a plate, but attempting to eat it as a burrito, or with chips, doesn't work as well as if it had been actual rice.