CROQUET OR CROQUETTE

Old Mother Frugal has gotten the word out to family members that she will gladly accept unused holiday ham bones.

What may look like an ordinary bone ready for the trash heap lies within a bounty of meals. It’s no wonder the holiday ham stores sell them for a pretty penny.

After a holiday meal, one of Mother’s Little Helpers saves a ham bone in their freezer. Upon arrival, Old Mother Frugal is informed that the ham bone needs to vacate their freezer for one of my own.  It’s usually large and oddly shaped. It takes up room where something flat and rectangular could fit more comfortably in their freezer.  It’s hard to hide the excitement.

After several months of said ham bone taking up precious space in my own freezer, the time had come to give it a final eviction notice.

The challenge became “what” to do with this ham bone.  Quickly more ideas came to mind than meat on the bone.  First, remove any excess fat from the ham bone.  Set aside, it will be needed to flavor a cup of pre-soaked Great Northern Beans.  One cup of dry beans will yield about 2 and ½ cups of cooked beans. 

Cooked white beans are of great fiber value. Eaten as a side dish or added to soups/chili, it can also be a healthy extender in recipes that call for mashed potatoes.  Mash the cooked white beans, flavor if warranted, and use in place of potatoes.  This tip will come in handy when making ham croquettes aka ham “patties”.

Next, remove all usable meat from the bone.  This particular bone yielded 2/3 lb of ham which when placed in a measuring cup, was 2 cups of cooked ham.  It doesn’t require much ham to make a flavorful dish.  These 2 cups would go far.  But just how far could Old Mother Frugal stretch this ham bone?

With the meat removed, finding the joint on the bone became easier to locate.  Once the bone was divided into two sections, it could be used simultaneously in separate recipes.

The Great Northern Beans went into the pressure cooker along with the ham fat for flavor.

One cup of diced ham became four ham patties with the addition of smashed beans to replace mashed potatoes in the recipe.

The drained liquid from the beans was about 10 cups of bean broth which was reserved to make a pot of Ham and Bean soup using one of the two bone pieces and ½ cup of ham.

A box of Pillsbury Pie Crusts was donated to Old Mother Frugal’s kitchen by another family member.  Half of one crust became the top crust for two individual personal-sized ham pot pies. A roux of butter, flour, broth and milk formed the gravy for which ½ cup ham and frozen mixed vegetables would co-mingle in a ceramic pie dish.

Once the Ham and Bean soup was cooked and the bone piece was removed, it was transferred into another pot with the other bone piece for a pot of Split Pea Soup.

What resembled a trash heap of ham scraps remained on the cutting board.  Old Mother Frugal’s eyes turned to a pile of Russet potatoes.  Loaded baked potato soup was the next recipe for which to use the ham scraps.  In lieu of bacon as the starter, ham scraps and diced onion were sautéed to begin what became a very flavorful pot of soup.

At the end of the morning, five entrees blessed the kitchen table from one free ham bone.

1.       Great Northern Bean and Ham soup

2.       Ham Croquettes (4)

3.       Personal-size Ham Pot Pies (2)

4.       Split Pea Soup

5.       Loaded Baked Potato Soup

The soups will freeze well if they aren’t consumed before they reach the freezer. 

The two pieces of ham bone still have meat affixed to their bones and full of flavor.  Back into the freezer they go for another eviction notice. Smaller in size now, they may not have the intense flavor as when they were first used, but they still can lend flavor to beans or soup.

Those holiday ham bones are a gold mine of flavor and meals for your family beyond glazed ham slices.  Croquet may be an outdoor game.  But croquettes, they are delicious ham patties inside your stomach!

SOUND THE BUGLE! Today’s tip:  Soup can be a year-round meal that is economical, nutritious and satisfying to eat.  Whether saving meat bones or vegetables scraps and corn cobs, use soup as a first-course or as a meal to fill your family’s hungry stomachs.