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Candied Jalapeno Winners!

March 12, 2011 by 1 Comment

Well hey! Took me long enough, but I have some winners to announce in the Cowboy Candy/Candied Jalapeno giveaway. Thank you all for your patience and support.  In the last two weeks, I’ve been recognized by Babble as one of their Top 100 Mom Food Bloggers and also by Circle of Moms as one of their Top 25 Foodie Moms. I chalk this up to you all being seriously awesome. So thank you all!

The winners, as chosen by Random.org were the following comments:

Kay Gardiner

Just made a pot of this and it is delicious! I love that it is basically a “pantry” recipe.

I didn’t have leftover chicken (I never do!) so I poached 4 boneless breasts in chicken stock while I was prepping, shredded them up and put them, poaching stock and all, into the soup.

I think if I had any candied jalapenos I would eat them standing up in the kitchen.

Thanks for the great recipe.
Kay

and

Patrick

I would LOVE a jar of these =). I’ve been dying to try them ever since you posted them in the first place, but I’ve been putting off any foray into canning till next year when I hopefully have my own place. I would like to try them on their own, on a grilled chicken pizza with tomatoes rather than sauce, and on some sandwiches.

What kind of puppy did you get?

Well, Patrick… I got THIS kind of puppy…

Isn’t she adorable?  *SQUEEEEEEEE  She’s a taco terrier. That’s right. I bought a dog named after a food.  And furthermore? We named her Fajita. Because we can!

But wait, there’s more!  I promised a winner on the Facebook Fan Site. And by George? It’s Katyln Marchini. Hi Katlyn! I hope you like the spicy.

So. Here’s how this works. You three send me an email with your physical mailing addresses and I’ll wrap these bad boys up and send them to you. Not the puppy, the jalapenos. The puppy is mine.

Just look at her little ladylike paws. She’s so polite.

 

Filed Under: Giveaways!

Garlic Hasselback Potatoes

March 10, 2011 by 6 Comments

It’s time for the wearin o’ the spuds. ‘Tis the season to bust out your best potato recipes and act like you have deep Irish tuber roots for a week or two. Step away from the green food coloring. Do something really Irish and turn out a hearty, lovely, soul-soothing meal. Read a little poetry*. Knock back a stout.

*Scroll down below the recipe for one of the most heart-wrenching love poems ever written, courtesy of William Butler Yeats, Irish poet extraordinaire.

Listen to some foot-stomping, dance inducing music and kick up your heels with the ones you love the best.  Irish music is good like that.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hk13Dn7ePY[/youtube]

Hasselback potatoes are one of the easiest ways to impress the tar out of anyone sitting at your dinner table, including yourself. Sliced to resemble an accordion, they are a hybrid of the best traits of roasted and baked potatoes. The fan-like presentation allows the top and bottom of the potato to become crisp and golden while the interior remains tender and creamy. It ends up looking frilly and terribly difficult and tasting like you slaved over it, but you’ll know better.

Although the original Hasselback potatoes were prepared peeled and coated with breadcrumbs, I prefer mine more natural with the skins left in place. I also tuck thin slices of garlic to roast and mellow between the ‘fans’ of the potato.

These potatoes will make your corned beef look like the supporting player on St. Patrick’s Day. Sure, Hasselback Potatoes are Swedish, but don’t worry about an international incident.  On March 17th, the whole world is Irish. It’s all good. Slàinte mhor!

Click here for a printer friendly, photo free version of this recipe.

Garlic Hasselback Potatoes

Ingredients:

  • Desired number of potatoes, scrubbed (Russets or Yukon Golds, depending on preference)
  • Garlic cloves –numbering the same as your potatoes- peeled and thinly sliced
  • Butter, 1 tablespoon per potato
  • Olive oil, for drizzling
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

 

Optional:

  • grated cheese, such as Cheddar, Monterey Jack or Colby
  • minced fresh parsley

Preheat oven to 425°F. Drizzle about a tablespoon of olive oil over the bottom of a rimmed baking dish large enough to hold your potatoes comfortably with a little room for the potatoes to fan out as they cook.

Place a new, unsharpened pencil (or wooden spoon handle or dowel) on either side of a potato, lengthwise. Starting at one end, slice down until the knife reaches the pencils. Repeat the slices at 1/8-to-1/4 inch intervals until you reach the other end of the potato. Tuck the thin pieces of garlic into the potato “fans” about every third slice or so. Break the butter into pieces and dot the top of each potato with about 1 tablespoon. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and drizzle about 1 teaspoon of olive oil over each potato.

Pop the baking dish into the oven and bake for about 40 minutes to 1 hour, or until the potatoes are crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. Transfer to a serving plate and sprinkle with desired optional toppings.

~~

“Had I the heaven’s embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

William Butler Yeats

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Garlic Hasselback Potatoes
Author: 
Recipe type: Side, Vegetable
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 

Serves: 4 or more
 

These are the ultimate cross between roasted and baked potatoes. Slicing accordion style keeps the tops and bottoms crisp and the insides creamy and tender. Butter and garlic takes it to a new level!
Ingredients
  • Ingredients:
  • Desired number of potatoes, scrubbed (Russets or Yukon Golds, depending on preference)
  • Garlic cloves –numbering the same as your potatoes- peeled and thinly sliced
  • Butter, 1 tablespoon per potato
  • Olive oil, for drizzling
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  • Optional:
  • grated cheese, such as Cheddar, Monterey Jack or Colby
  • minced fresh parsley

Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 425°F. Drizzle about a tablespoon of olive oil over the bottom of a rimmed baking dish large enough to hold your potatoes comfortably with a little room for the potatoes to fan out as they cook.
  2. Place a new, unsharpened pencil (or wooden spoon handle or dowel) on either side of a potato, lengthwise. Starting at one end, slice down until the knife reaches the pencils. Repeat the slices at ⅛-to-1/4 inch intervals until you reach the other end of the potato. Tuck the thin pieces of garlic into the potato “fans” about every third slice or so. Break the butter into pieces and dot the top of each potato with about 1 tablespoon. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and drizzle about 1 teaspoon of olive oil over each potato.
  3. Pop the baking dish into the oven and bake for about 40 minutes to 1 hour, or until the potatoes are crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. Transfer to a serving plate and sprinkle with desired optional toppings.

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Filed Under: Appetizers & Snacks, Holiday Food, Kitchen Techniques and Hints, Potatoes, Recipes, Side Dishes Tagged With: , , ,

Deep Dish Snickerdoodle Skillet Cookie

March 8, 2011 by 12 Comments

Raise your hand if you, like me, love snickerdoodles beyond any other cookie on the face of the earth.  Raise your other hand if you, also like me, really don’t think snickerdoodles need to be messed with to make them wonderful.  Raise your foot (since we’re running out of hands) if you think tinkering with snickerdoodles is close-on to blasphemy. Well, now that we’re most of us standing on one foot with both hands in the air, let me make a confession (because at this point, if you raise that other foot to kick me you’re down on your keister. This is what I call self-protection.) I messed with snickerdoodles today.  And I didn’t just mess with any snickerdoodles, I messed with the best, most sacred recipe for them in the entire world; My Grandma’s.

My Grandma’s snickerdoodles are the cookies that made my teen years not so gloomy, clad-in-black and angsty. Simple, pure barely sweet sugar and butter cookies rolled in cinnamon sugar and baked until puffy, crisp on the outside, and tender as could be on the inside. Life was very good when Grandma put a plate of them in front of me.

I have been playing with skillet cookies (as seen here, here, and here). Reasoning that if chocolate chip cookies worked, so would a host of other flavors, I boldly went where Grandma’s cookies have not gone* and plopped the whole batch of snickerdoodle dough into a sugar and butter coated cast-iron skillet. And ain’t a thing wrong with it, let me tell you.

Why bother skillet-ing the cookie? Why not just roll the dough into balls and proceed as normal? Because we can. And because we’re talking about one skillet, cramming the cookie dough in and baking. Hello time saver. You’re awfully handsome.

This is different than Grandma’s snickerdoodles. For starters, and most obviously, it’s one mondo huge cookie.  It’s deep dish. It’s mega, mega. Secondly, and more subtly, there is a high ratio of caramelization and crisp on the bottom of the cookie. This is a-okay by me.  When cooked at the lower end of the time frame given in the recipe, you get a more chewy, moist center.  The longer you leave it in the oven, the higher the crisp layer ascends. Cook accordingly.

But do cook.  And I’ll just bet you have everything you need in the pantry and refrigerator to make a pan full of Deep Dish Snickerdoodle Skillet Cookie in time to have a warm wedge of this topped with a scoop of melting vanilla ice cream* in your mitts before your evening date with the couch. It is a mighty nice thing. And I do believe Grandma will approve.

*My ice cream is winging its way homeward in the back of my husband’s car as I type.


Deep Dish Snickerdoodle Skillet Cookie

Scroll to the bottom for an easy-print version of this recipe!

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup (2 sticks/8 ounces) butter, softened to room temperature
  • 1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces by weight) granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 3/4 cups (11 3/4 ounces by weight) all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar mixed with 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

In a mid-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl or stand mixer, cream together the butter, sugar and eggs until the mixture is smooth and lightened in color.  Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix together until evenly and thoroughly combined. Chill the dough for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Rub a cast-iron (or other oven-proof) skillet with a small amount of butter.  Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of the cinnamon sugar mixture over the bottom of the skillet. Scrape the cookie dough into the pan. Moisten your hands with water and pat out the dough evenly, covering the bottom of the skillet completely. Evenly sprinkle the remaining cinnamon sugar over the cookie dough. Bake the cookie for 30-45 minutes. When the edges have browned and the center is golden brown the cookie is ready to be pulled from the oven.  At this stage, the cookie, when sliced, will be very moist. If you like your cookies crispier, leave in the oven for closer to the 45 minute mark. When done to your liking transfer the pan to a wire rack to cool for 20 minutes.  After 20 minutes, you can slice the cookie into wedges.  This is best served slightly warm with ice cream melting over it.  But really? What in life isn’t better that way?

 

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Deep Dish Snickerdoodle Skillet Cookie
Author: 
Recipe type: Dessert, Cookie
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 

Serves: 12
 

The classic snickerdoodle cinnamon and sugar rendered as one huge deep dish cookie with a high ratio of caramelization and crisp on the bottom of the cookie.
Ingredients
  • 1 cup (2 sticks/8 ounces) butter, softened to room temperature
  • 1½ cups (10½ ounces by weight) granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2¾ cups (11¾ ounces by weight) all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar mixed with 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Instructions
  1. In a mid-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Set aside.
  2. In a mixing bowl or stand mixer, cream together the butter, sugar and eggs until the mixture is smooth and lightened in color. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix together until evenly and thoroughly combined. Chill the dough for 30 minutes.
  3. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
  4. Rub a cast-iron (or other oven-proof) skillet with a small amount of butter. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of the cinnamon sugar mixture over the bottom of the skillet. Scrape the cookie dough into the pan. Moisten your hands with water and pat out the dough evenly, covering the bottom of the skillet completely. Evenly sprinkle the remaining cinnamon sugar over the cookie dough. Bake the cookie for 30-45 minutes. When the edges have browned and the center is golden brown the cookie is ready to be pulled from the oven. At this stage, the cookie, when sliced, will be very moist. If you like your cookies crispier, leave in the oven for closer to the 45 minute mark. When done to your liking transfer the pan to a wire rack to cool for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, you can slice the cookie into wedges. This is best served slightly warm with ice cream melting over it. But really? What in life isn’t better that way?

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Filed Under: Cookies, Desserts Tagged With: , , , , ,

Braided Semolina Bread

March 4, 2011 by 11 Comments

Bread with soup. Bread for toast. Bread to sop up the last streaks of sauce or gravy or pan juices. I suppose you might be able to survive without bread, but you sure can’t live without it. A big, fat, puffy, chewy, golden loaf of homemade bread is just about the best thing that could possibly happen to your day.

This is not one-hour or no-knead, but is so worth your time. This is another one of those foods that make you want to gnaw off your own foot while it’s cooking; It smells so good that you just can’t help yourself. When you tear a hot corner from this loaf and watch a cold pat of salted butter melt down into the soft crumb you’ll go weak in the knees. Assuming you haven’t eaten past your knees, that is…

Fresh from the oven and ripped into hunks, this bread is exactly what you want to sop up soups, sauces, dressings, gravies and pan juices.  If you are a patient, forbearing, big-picture type person and you let it cool completely, this slices beautifully for sandwiches or toast.

This is The Minions’ favorite bread. They like that it yields two mega-sized loaves. They love that I top one with just sesame seeds and the other with sesame seeds, poppy seeds, onion flakes, and garlic flakes. They live for the times I tell them they can tear off industrial sized pieces from the loaf that’s dressed like an everything bagel.  Butter is applied liberally. There are animal noises.  Crumbs fly.  They wait, slightly more patiently, for the sesame loaf to cool.  They slice quarter-inch thick pieces of bread and like them toasted on one side with a top-hat of blueberry jam.

On the nights that I make them wait, they mill around the kitchen aimlessly, standing silently behind me like little ghosts waiting… waiting… waiting… making their way to the table and half-heartedly helping themselves to the whatever-else-I’m-serving then pouncing when the bread basket gets to them.

This is a bread of beauty; golden brown, crispy crust topped with crunchy seeds (and perhaps spices) and a soft, yielding interior.  It is another gem of a recipe from the King Arthur Flour Company and their top notch baker’s test kitchen. I’ve been making this bread for somewhere near ten years- ever since this recipe appeared printed in the pages of their horribly tempting catalogue. It’s a hard recipe to mess up beyond edibility.  I’ve accidentally left the dough to rise overnight. I’ve hurried it along and forgotten the second rise.  I’ve brushed and topped it with exactly nothing at all.  I’ve substituted bread flour for all-purpose flour out of necessity.  And every. single. time. it’s wonderful.  It’s a very forgiving bread to make if you’re nervous about working with yeast* or dough, as I have accidentally proven time and again.

*Here’s a comforting bit of knowledge about yeast.  If you don’t have a warm place to let the dough rise, don’t worry!  It will still rise, it’ll just take longer.  Sometimes much longer.  Just be sure to keep it lightly covered to prevent the surface of the dough from drying.

Please try this.  Pretty please. With sesame seeds on top.

Braided Semolina Bread

Gently adapted from King Arthur Flour Baker’s Catalogue.

Scroll to the bottom for an easy-print version of this recipe!

Ingredients:

  • 4 cups (1 pound, 1 ounce, by weight) all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups (11 1/2 ounces, by weight) semolina flour
  • 3 teaspoons SAF or instant yeast
  • 3 teaspoons kosher salt
  • 4 tablespoons sugar or non-diastatic malt powder
  • 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 cups (16 ounces, by weight or volume) lukewarm water
  • 1 egg white

Optional Toppings:

  • Sesame seeds
  • Poppy seeds
  • Onion flakes (dehydrated)
  • Garlic flakes (dehydrated)
  • Coarse salt

To Mix Dough By Hand:

Add all ingredients except the egg white and toppings to a large mixing bowl and stir together with a sturdy wooden spoon until you form a shaggy but cohesive dough.  Let the dough rest for 30 minutes, covered with a clean towel. Turn out onto a lightly floured counter top and knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Transfer dough to a clean bowl, cover with a damp towel and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, about 2 hours.

To Mix Dough By Stand Mixer:

Add all ingredients except the egg white and toppings to the work bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the dough hook.  Turn mixer onto the lowest setting and mix until a shiny, elastic dough forms.  Remove the bowl from the mixer, cover the bowl with a damp towel and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, about 2 hours.

To Mix Dough By Bread Machine:

Add all ingredients except the egg white and toppings to the pan of your bread machine that has been fitted with the dough paddle(s). Set the bread machine on the dough setting and press start.  When the cycle is completed, proceed with shaping…

To Shape the Dough:

Turn the dough out onto a clean surface and form into a neat mass. Divide the dough in half, then divide each half into 3 pieces.  Cover three of the pieces with a towel while working with the other three.

Pat one piece into a rough oval.  Use the side of your hand to press an indentation along the length of the dough piece.

Fold the dough together along the length of the indentation.

Roll lightly with the hands to form a thick rope between 12 and 14 inches long. Repeat with the other two pieces so that you have 3 ropes of roughly equal length.  Line them up in parallel with the ends facing you.

To Braid the Dough:

Gently grasp the end of the rope on the far left. Lift it to about the center, leaving the far end on the counter, cross it over the rope nearest to it and lay it down. Now grasp the end of the piece on the far right and lift it to about the center, leaving its far end on the counter, cross it over the (now) center rope (which is the first one you moved) and lay it down. This is the manoeuver you will repeat – far left over center, far right over center, and so on- until you have ends too short to continue.  At that point, pinch the ends together and tuck under the braid.  Now go back to the center of the loaf and finish braiding the loaf toward the top. When you reach the ends, pinch together and tuck under.

The whole process looks like this:

Cover the loaf lightly and let rise in a warm place until puffy in appearance and about doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 400°F.  Whisk the egg white until it is frothy.  Paint generously onto the risen bread braids and sprinkle the braids with desired toppings.

Bake for 18-22 minutes or until a golden brown color and firm on top.  Turn the oven off, prop the door open a little (two inches, if you can make your door behave) and let cool for at least an hour.  Or tear into the loaves with your teeth.  I won’t tell.

5.0 from 1 reviews

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Braided Semolina Bread
Author: 
Recipe type: Bread, Side
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 

Serves: 12
 

This Italian style bread is a thing of beauty: golden brown, crispy crust topped with crunchy seeds (and perhaps spices) and a soft, yielding interior.
Ingredients
  • 4 cups (1 pound, 1 ounce, by weight) all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups (11½ ounces, by weight) semolina flour
  • 3 teaspoons SAF or instant yeast
  • 3 teaspoons kosher salt
  • 4 tablespoons sugar or non-diastatic malt powder
  • 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 cups (16 ounces, by weight or volume) lukewarm water
  • 1 egg white
  • Optional Toppings:
  • Sesame seeds
  • Poppy seeds
  • Onion flakes (dehydrated)
  • Garlic flakes (dehydrated)
  • Coarse salt

Instructions
  1. To Mix Dough By Hand:
  2. Add all ingredients except the egg white and toppings to a large mixing bowl and stir together with a sturdy wooden spoon until you form a shaggy but cohesive dough. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes, covered with a clean towel. Turn out onto a lightly floured counter top and knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Transfer dough to a clean bowl, cover with a damp towel and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, about 2 hours.
  3. To Mix Dough By Stand Mixer:
  4. Add all ingredients except the egg white and toppings to the work bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. Turn mixer onto the lowest setting and mix until a shiny, elastic dough forms. Remove the bowl from the mixer, cover the bowl with a damp towel and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, about 2 hours.
  5. To Mix Dough By Bread Machine:
  6. Add all ingredients except the egg white and toppings to the pan of your bread machine that has been fitted with the dough paddle(s). Set the bread machine on the dough setting and press start. When the cycle is completed, proceed with shaping…
  7. To Shape the Dough:
  8. Turn the dough out onto a clean surface and form into a neat mass. Divide the dough in half, then divide each half into 3 pieces. Cover three of the pieces with a towel while working with the other three.
  9. Pat one piece into a rough oval. Use the side of your hand to press an indentation along the length of the dough piece. Fold the dough together along the length of the indentation and roll lightly with the hands to form a thick rope between 12 and 14 inches long. Repeat with the other two pieces so that you have 3 ropes of roughly equal length. Line them up in parallel with the ends facing you.
  10. To Braid the Dough:
  11. Gently grasp the end of the rope on the far left. Lift it to about the center, leaving the far end on the counter, cross it over the rope nearest to it and lay it down. Now grasp the end of the piece on the far right and lift it to about the center, leaving its far end on the counter, cross it over the (now) center rope (which is the first one you moved) and lay it down. This is the manoeuver you will repeat – far left over center, far right over center, and so on- until you have ends too short to continue. At that point, pinch the ends together and tuck under the braid. Now go back to the center of the loaf and finish braiding the loaf toward the top. When you reach the ends, pinch together and tuck under. Cover the loaf lightly and let rise in a warm place until puffy in appearance and about doubled in size.
  12. Preheat oven to 400°F. Whisk the egg white until it is frothy. Paint generously onto the risen bread braids and sprinkle the braids with desired toppings.
  13. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until a golden brown color and firm on top. Turn the oven off, prop the door open a little (two inches, if you can make your door behave) and let cool for at least an hour. Or tear into the loaves with your teeth. I won’t tell.

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Filed Under: Bread, Instructional, Kitchen Techniques and Hints, Recipes Tagged With: , , , , ,

Country Ham Stuffed Dates

March 2, 2011 by 7 Comments

Have you ever had a real country ham?  A proper country ham?  As in salt-cured, hard-wood smoked, aged ham from south of the Mason-Dixon?  If you haven’t, you really need to try one as soon as ever you can lay your hands on one.

Country Ham is a food experience unlike many in the United States.

It’s generally sold unrefrigerated, wrapped in parchment and swaddled in cheesecloth.

Meat: Unrefrigerated, uncanned, and covered in mold.  Aside from bleu cheese, there isn’t a lot of deliberately moldy food sold in our country. But make no mistake, this stuff is safe as houses. It is one giant cut of pork shoulder cured in enough salt to pay all the Roman Legionnaires of days gone by.  It’s smoked.  And then it’s aged.

Wow.

It’s ham the way ham was meant to be. Intense salty ham flavor and chewy texture.  There’s nothing even remotely insipid about this ham.  It demands for you to love it. And I do.  Oh, I do.

Around Christmas, my little sister, jockeying for Best-Little-Sister-Named-Christina-In-The-World status, brought us a Clifty Farms whole country ham when she visited from Virginia. I popped it on a hook in the cellar and saved it for a special occasion*.

*My special occasion ended up being Monday. Just because it was Monday. And I wanted ham. Don’t look at me like that. You try resisting a country ham in your basement.

When you remove the cheesecloth and parchment the scent surrounds you and makes your brain spontaneously combust with anticipation.  Brain combustion. Little known complication to eating country ham. The deep pinkish brown rind, golden fat and salty flesh that ranges from almost black to smoky red are a straight up invitation to take a bite cave-man style, but I wouldn’t advise it.

There are a couple things to consider first.  You’re going to want to soak it long enough to scrub that mold off.  It’s not harmful mold, obviously, but keeping it on there doesn’t really enhance the overall experience.  Most folks soak it overnight and give it a real overall scrub with a stiff brush. For detailed instructions on how to dismember your whole country ham and how to bake it, you can visit Clifty Farms website. Country ham is most commonly served in thick pan-fried slices with red-eye gravy. And that is one very good reason to buy a country ham in and of itself.  But that’s not the only good and righteous thing to do with one of these.

So what did I do with my big old ham aside from standing in front of it carving off pieces and popping them directly into my gaping mouth? If you keep in mind that country ham is pretty similar to a good prosciutto (but smoked) you’ll have a good idea of where I went with it.  I carved the whole thing up and portioned it out to freeze for later use, but saved a bunch of shaved end pieces, the most intensely flavored bits, to do today’s non-recipe recipe.  Country Ham Stuffed Dates. If a festive dish got any easier it’d be laughable. I can see a plate full of these as the most envied appetizer ever or a couple lovingly tucked into a beautiful lunch with tart apples and an aged cheese .

A country ham, may at first glance, seem a bit pricey, but they stretch and feed the masses like no other.  Because of the strength of flavor and the saltiness, a little country ham goes much further than a city ham of equal size. You get several different types of cuts of meat -slices for frying, big meaty pieces for chopping, shaved or chipped end pieces- along with a big soup bone and a lovely smoked hock. It ends up being a fantastic overall value.

Now a question.  Seeing as I have a large amount of beautiful country ham in my freezer I would love to hear your ideas.  What’s your favorite way to eat country ham?  Or regular ham?

If, sadly, you are unable to procure a real country ham you can substitute thinly sliced prosciutto with good results.  But please, for the sake of beauty in the world and food fabulousness, get thee to a hammery and pick up a piece of Americana.  You won’t regret it.

This post was not sponsored, requested or otherwise noticed by the good folks at Clifty Farms.  To my great chagrin, I’m pretty sure they don’t even know I’m gnawing on one of their hambones up here in rural New York.  I seriously believe in their product, though, and think you should all try one of their whole hams at your earliest convenience. If Clifty Farms ever stumbles upon this and is seeking a mighty enthusiastic spokeswoman, they know who to ask! And of course, many, many thanks to Christina for her thoughtful gift.


Country Ham Stuffed Dates

Scroll to the bottom for an easy-print version of this recipe!

Ingredients:

  • Shaved country ham (or prosciutto)
  • Pitted dates (Use the freshest, moistest dates you can get.)

Make a slice, lengthwise, in the date to but not through the center.  Stuff a slice or two of country ham into the open date. Don’t overstuff as the ham is intense and salty.  Arrange on a serving platter.  Store leftovers, tightly wrapped, in the refrigerator.

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Country Ham Stuffed Dates
Author: 
Recipe type: appetizer, hors d’oeuvres, snack
Prep time: 
Total time: 

Serves: 2-4
 

Sweet, succulent pitted dates stuffed with intense, salty country ham. If a dish was any easier, it would be laughable.
Ingredients
  • Shaved country ham (or prosciutto)
  • Pitted dates (Use the freshest, moistest dates you can get.)

Instructions
  1. Make a slice, lengthwise, in the date to but not through the center. Stuff a slice or two of country ham into the open date. Don’t overstuff as the ham is intense and salty. Arrange on a serving platter. Store leftovers, tightly wrapped, in the refrigerator.

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Filed Under: Appetizers & Snacks, Charcuterie, Kitchen Techniques and Hints, Meat, Recipes Tagged With: , ,
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