"Unique Creative Cooking" (Mason City, IA church cookbook) & "Blondie's Soups.Salads.Sandwiches Cookbook" - Ham and Green Noodles and Split Pea Soup

Date I made these recipes: April 16, 2009

Unique Creative Cooking – Heavenly Pleasures from Old First Church—The First Congregational United Church of Christ – Mason City, Iowa
Published by: The First Congregational Church
© 1987
Recipe: Ham and Green Noodles (submitted by Marilynn Ellers) – p. 79

Blondie’s Soups.Salads.Sandwiches Cookbook – Selected and Illustrated by Chic Young (Blondie comic strip creator)
Published by: David McKay Company
© 1947
Recipe: Split Pea Soup – p. 69

Today’s lesson, kids, is this: What to do with leftover ham?

One of my friends marveled at how I baked a 9-pound ham for Easter given that there are only two of us in the house, but I like ham leftovers and so I had ham recipes lined up before the ham even hit the oven.

The first dish I made almost sounded like something Lynne Rossetto Kasper would make on the “Stump the Cook” portion of her weekly radio program, The Splendid Table. In that segment, a caller gives Lynne a list of three ingredients currently found in the refrigerator and Lynne has to come up with a dish. Cookbook author Christopher Kimball decides whether or not Lynne hit the jackpot or lost it all in an attempt to create something edible. I have to hand it to her, she’s usually pretty creative.

Now the title Ham and Green Noodles might be off-putting to some but don’t let the “green” scare you; green is for green spinach noodles, not for anything that went bad in your refrigerator or cupboard. (Don’t laugh. My friend, Mary, loves to tell the story of how her mom stockpiled Twinkies for so long that the filling turned green. I can’t even phantom how that is possible but it’s true.)

Several other ingredients did not scare me, either, as we had a lineup of ham, noodles, Cheddar cheese soup and sour cream – what’s not to love about that combo!

But folks, the rest of the ingredients were a little spooky: sliced mushrooms (not bad but I didn’t see how they would work); chopped (black) ripe olives (???) and then a complete head-scratcher – ½ cup of dry roasted peanuts.

Hmmmmm…..

Even more off-putting, though, was the way the dish looked before I put it in the oven. It was very thick making it difficult to spoon out of my mixing bowl, and those little black olive flecks looked like…well, I will leave that to your imagination!

Now faithful readers know that I often (always?) take issue with something in the recipe and today I have two gripes: first, ALL ingredients should be listed in the recipe list because if you’re like me, this becomes your grocery list, right? (Although I have to confess that I forgot my recipe at home and so shopped from total recall). And had I seen that I needed 8 ounces of grated Cheddar cheese, I probably would have bought it when I got the rest of the ingredients, but no. I was about ready to pop the thing in the oven when I read the instruction that said “Top with 8 ounces of Cheddar cheese (grated).” Well what the ???! I had to drop everything, run up to my local gas station to purchase an overly-inflated brick of cheese for this recipe. I hate it when that happens.

Gripe number two has to do with the vague instruction “Bake at 350 until bubbly and brown on top.”

Huh. And that would be approximately how many minutes? I really had no idea and I am not one to open oven doors to peek while cooking so I glanced at the next recipe in the book and it said “350 for about an hour.” So that’s what I went with and the dish was fine but the cheese had formed a hard crust, probably just to tick me off for having (almost) left it out in the first place!

As to the taste, my husband liked it but I dunno – I think we could have ditched the peanuts (in my opinion, they added nothing) and the olives but used everything else. As my friend, Andrea says, “It’s a texture thing.”

And now on to the soup…years ago, I purchased Blondie’s Cook Book – Soups. Salads.Sandwiches from Bonnie Slotnick’s Cookbooks in New York and when I found myself with a ham bone, I went on the Hunt for Red October to find a soup recipe. I had a bit of trouble until I unearthed this cookbook.

Some of the younger generation might not be familiar with the comic strip, Blondie, nor with the TV series of the same name that aired in 1957. Although Blondie is the title of the comic strip, it’s really about Blondie’s husband, Dagwood Bumstead. Dagwood works in an office for Mr. Dithers, a rather crotchety old man, has great best friends named Herb and Cookie, and in his spare time loves baths and making sandwiches. Huge sandwiches. In fact, if you see a sandwich named Dagwood on a menu, you know you’ll be getting one gigantic sandwich, filled with all kinds of meats and cheeses.

So you’d think, wouldn’t you, that I’d make a sandwich from the cookbook, seeing as how that is Dagwood’s specialty? Well, sorry folks, the sandwich recipes didn’t grab my attention and seeing as how I was on the hunt for a ham-bone soup, I went with Split Pea.

This recipe is good but it definitely needed more time to cook; the recipe said 1 hour and that is way too short unless you like eating raw split peas. I think I left it on the stove about 2 ½ hours and that worked just fine seeing as how I like a thicker pea soup. I hate to say but my mother’s pea soup is the standard to which I hold all other pea soups—so thick you could stand a spoon it in, loaded with potatoes and carrots and one delicious ham bone because my mother never liked to throw anything out…and neither should you!

Ham and Green Noodles (serving size not indicated)
3 cups chopped ham (small cubes)
2 cups cooked spinach noodles
½ cup sliced mushrooms
½ cup chopped ripe olives
½ cup dry roasted peanuts
1 can Cheddar cheese soup
1 tsp. prepared mustard
1 cup sour cream
8 ounces Cheddar cheese, grated

Mix ingredients and put in a greased 9x13” pan. Top with 8 ounces Cheddar cheese (grated). Bake at 350 until bubbly and brown on top.

Split Pea Soup – serves 6
1 ham bone
1 pound split peas
2 carrots
½ onion
Salt
Pepper

Cover cooked ham bone with water; simmer slowly 2 hours, remove bone and add any meat clinging to bone to soup stock. Add peas; scrub carrots and dice. Chop onion, and add carrot and onion to the stock. Cover and simmer slowly 1 hour, then add salt and pepper to taste.

"The America's Test Kitchen Family Book" - Skillet Tuna Noodle Casserole

Date I made this recipe: April 10, 2009 (Good Friday)

The America’s Test Kitchen Family Book by the Editors at America’s Test Kitchen
Published by: America’s Test Kitchen
ISBN: 0-936184-87-6
Recipe: Skillet Tuna Noodle Casserole – p. 243

I am not a fish fan, nor am I a practicing Catholic (“incredibly lapsed” is what comes to mind) but hey, it’s Good Friday and so in honor of the occasion (and to knock off another recipe for my blog), I selected a tuna noodle casserole for tonight’s dinner.

I mean, who doesn’t like a tuna noodle casserole? Apparently, many a cookbook author because I tell you what, there was a decided lack of tuna recipes in several of the cookbooks I looked at. Sure, there were a few in some of the community cookbooks I looked at, but I honestly don’t think that tuna, macaroni, cream of mushroom soup and (possibly) potato chips is a bona fide tuna casserole recipe. And so I went all highbrow on you and decided to go with one that had one of my favorite tuna noodle casserole “must-haves” and that is peas. Peas and tuna just go together, don’t they? One of my favorites from my mother’s summer repertoire was tuna salad made with tuna, macaroni, onion, celery, peas… and Miracle Whip. Yes, I know there are Miracle Whip snobs out there but it was the only thing available in my small town and so Miracle Whip it was.

This recipe is not your traditional take on a tuna casserole since you cook the pasta in the skillet but I wouldn’t expect anything less out of America’s Test Kitchen. The show of the same name is on PBS on Saturday mornings (at least in the Minneapolis market) and I enjoy seeing cookbook and magazine author Christopher Kimball and his staff tweak old favorites. This dish was fun to make because it was so different in nature and might tasty, too.

Since summer is almost upon us (once it quits snowing, that is), don’t be surprised if tuna and peas makes it back on the docket in the very near future! I can taste them now…

Skillet Tuna Noodle Casserole – Serves 4-6
Prep time: 10 minutes Total time: 40 minutes
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
10 ounces white button mushrooms, trimmed and sliced thin
1 onion, minced
Salt
8 ounces egg noodles (3 cups)
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup frozen peas
2 (7-ounce) foil pouches solid white tuna, flaked
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
Pepper
Lemon wedges (for serving)
Crushed Ritz or Saltine crackers (for topping, if desired)

Melt the butter in a 12-inch skillet over medium heat. Add the mushrooms, onion, and ½ teaspoon salt. Cook until the mushrooms are browned, about 15 minutes. Transfer the mixture to a bowl.

Sprinkle the noodles into the skillet. Pour the broth and cream over the noodles. Cover and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low and continue to simmer, stirring occasionally, until the noodles are tender, about 10 minutes.

Stir in the peas, tuna, mushroom mixture, and parsley and allow to heat through, about 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve, passing the lemon wedges separately.

Okay, faithful readers know that I often take issue with one of the instructions. Here’s today’s: If I’m supposed to cover and bring the noodle mixture to a simmer, how will I know it’s at simmer unless I uncover the pot? Think about that.