Ham and Eggs and Candy, Oh My!
Hey, look! I actually remembered that it's Easter this coming weekend! Wow!
You know what that means, right? Three things are all over the grocery stores: Ham, eggs, and Easter candy. Two of them are great for us, the other? Not so much.
So let's have a little chat about all three, shall we?
Ham is super-yummy and reasonably low carb. It is not, however, carb-free. I have yet to run across a ham that did not have some sugar added. Reading the labels will help you to find the lowest carb ham. Hint: It is not going to be one that is heavily coated with a honey glaze!
Still, many of you will buy a pre-cooked, glazed, spiral-sliced ham, simply because it's dead easy to serve, and I can't hardly blame you. You might cut the outside off your portion, however.
If you'll be roasting your own ham, you can choose the brand with the lowest carb count per serving. On the other hand, in this economic climate you may choose the one with the lowest price per pound. I'll understand; I'm eyeballing the 77c-per-pound deal at the local Kroger myself. If you'd like to glaze that ham, try this:
Maple-Orange Ham Glaze
It’s common to glaze a roasting ham with brown sugar, honey, or the like – but we all know what that does to the carb count! Here’s a glaze that’ll impress your family and friends, while leaving your diet intact.
1/2 cup sugar free pancake syrup
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon Splenda
1/4 teaspoon orange extract
1 tablespoon brown mustard
1 tablespoon butter
Simply combine everything in a small saucepan over low heat, and simmer for five minutes. Use to baste a ham during the last hour of roasting time. You can also use this to glaze a ham steak, for a much quicker supper!
Enough for a good-sized ham. The whole batch has: 133 Calories; 13g Fat; 2g Protein; 6g Carbohydrate; trace Dietary Fiber; 6 grams usable carb. Carb count does not include the polyols in the sugar-free pancake syrup.
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(Reprinted by permission from 500 More Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender, copyright 2004 Fair Winds Press)
You're going to have leftover ham. You know it, I know it. What will you do with it? Here are some ideas cribbed from an old issue of Lowcarbezine!:
* Make ham and cheese UnSandwiches. This is when you take a slice of ham and a slice of cheese, and sandwich the mustard and the mayo between them, then simply stuff them in your face. I love this. If you're feeling particularly ambitious, you could wrap the whole thing in a lettuce leaf. Hardly essential, though.
* Serve frizzled ham with eggs for breakfast -- or for that matter, for a fast, easy supper. Steamed broccoli would be good with this, if you ask me, and you did!
* Slice the ham and frizzle it in a skillet. When the first side is cooked, turn it, put mustard on each piece, and some cheese -- Swiss, cheddar, whatever you like. It will melt while the second side browns. Again, a fast, easy crowd pleaser.
* Make ham salad. This can even be ham and egg salad, using up two leftovers at once! Diced ham, chopped hard boiled eggs, diced celery, maybe some diced pickle (if you want sweet pickles, Mt. Olive brand jars sugar-free bread-and-butter pickles; they're pretty good) or green pepper, or a little chopped onion, mixed with mayonnaise to taste. Very nice!
* Easier yet, slivered or cubed cold ham and/or chopped hard boiled eggs make a tossed salad into a meal. You might even throw in some shredded cheese. This makes a fine take along lunch -- take the dressing separately, in a small container, or your salad will be soggy by lunchtime.
* Here's a fast skillet dinner using leftover ham:
Sour Cream Ham
Sliver up enough ham to feed the troops. Chop an onion, too -- a little one if you're only feeding a couple of you, a bigger one if you're feeding four or five. Saute them together in a little oil or butter until the onion is limp. Add a drained can of mushrooms or two (again, depending on how many you're feeding.) (You may use fresh mushrooms if
you like; they're certainly better. I just always have canned mushrooms in the house. If you use fresh ones, wipe them, slice them, and fry them with the ham and onion.) Then stir in enough sour cream to coat everything well -- start with a half a cup, and go by taste.
You, you low carb dieter you, you eat this as is, or over cauli-rice or shirataki noodles. You can serve it over brown rice for the troops, if you like. Obviously, with a loose sort of recipe like this, I can't give you an exact carb count, but assuming you picked the lowest carb ham at the market, it should be quite low. Mushrooms are very low carb, so is sour cream; the only appreciable amount of carb comes from the onion.
Or you could wow them with this recipe I invented to help get rid of this year's Christmas ham. Feel free to double this.
Shirataki Carbonara
16 ounces tofu shirataki
1/2 medium onion, sliced paper-thin
4 tablespoons butter
1 cup ham cubes, about 1/2"
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon chicken bouillon granules
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 eggs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup minced fresh parsley
Snip open the shirataki, dump 'em in a strainer in the sink, then rinse them well. Put them in a bowl and stick them in the microwave on 80% power for just a couple of minutes.
In your big skillet, start the onion sauteing in the butter over medium-low heat. While that's happening, cube your leftover ham.
Throw the ham cubes in, too, and let 'em get just a touch of gold. Now add the water and bouillon concentrate, and stir till the bouillon concentrate is dissolved. Add the garlic. Let everything simmer a minute while you crack the eggs into a bowl and scramble them up with a fork.
Pull your shirataki out of the microwave, and dump them in the skillet. Stir everything together well -- I found my big tongs worked well for this. Now add the beaten eggs, stirring the whole time. Let it cook for a minute. Next, stir in the Parmesan. Let it cook another two or three minutes.
Stir in the parsley and serve, with extra Parmesan on top if you want it.
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2 servings, each with: 504 Calories; 41g Fat ; 27g Protein; 7g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 6 grams usable carb
One other thought about ham: The pre-cooked, just glaze-and-heat-through hams keep very well in the fridge. If you have the space -- I have an extra fridge in my garage -- it's worth buying a second one while they're on sale, and stashing it for a meal a couple of months from now.
Oh, and for those of you who are not fond of ham? There's no law requiring you to serve it for Easter, you know. I'm going to serve a leg of lamb, which is what my mother always served. I simply adore roast lamb.
This is getting astonishingly long. I think I'll post it and continue in another post.
