Every month, bacon and ham steaks

[siercia]

So, the meat CSA.

It is still fun, and the meat is still good.

However.

Every month, we get a lot of bacon, and a lot of ham steaks.

While we could eat bacon for breakfast every weekend, it's probably not a great idea. Ham steaks, I don't know. I don't really know how to deal with them, and I don't really love how they taste, so I don't want to just fry 'em up and sit down to a slab of ham for dinner.

So, I need ideas for what I can do with the 4+ pounds of bacon and untold number of hamsteaks in my freezer right now.

Anyone got anything good?

Comments

[dchenes.livejournal.com]

I don't like the flavor of straight ham either, but cut up and used to flavor soup (potato or bean, preferably), it's quite acceptable.

[5eh.livejournal.com]

holy crap that's a lotta salt. To be honest I love bacon so much...there's so many good things you can make with it, but yeah, I could see getting sick of it pretty quick.

One thing I like to pass on to Americans is Egg Salad + Bacon sandwiches. Not only are egg salad sandwiches one of my faves, you add bacon and KAPOW, it rocks. Speaking of sandwiches, I suppose you could make breakfast sandwiches, as well.

Bacon's a good addition to many meats. You could do a modified chicken cordon bleu and use bacon instead of the thin sliced ham. Nice filets + bacon are always good as well, but pricey, of course.

I only like ham steak if it is cubed and with eggs and cheese :P I will eat it if it is put in front of me, but yeah, not a big fan.

...those are my "off the top of my head" ideas...

[humanbeatbox.livejournal.com]

Bacon goes nicely in collard greens with some onion, garlic & brown sugar to cut the bitterness. Fry the bacon until crispy, add the onion until translucent, add the garlic for like 15-45 seconds, then throw in the collard greens and brown sugar and stir it all around until the greens wilt. YUM.

[siercia]

Ooooh, now that sounds good. We'll be getting buried in greens in a week or so, I'll keep this one in mind.

[kaasirpent]

Bacon soap?

Maple-Glazed bacon?

Ham steak is wonderful with pineapple, honey mustard, just mustard, apple, or any number of combinations.

I adore the taste of ham steak, and I would just fry it up as you said. However, I'm sure it would also make a very good twice-cooked pork recipe, and I'm sure it braises well, and surely you could come up with something delicious to braise it in. :)

Pork-fried rice is good. A friend of mine from Taiwan who is a wonderful cook takes ham and stir-fries it with bias-cut celery. Believe it or not, that is quite tasty, and needs almost no other seasoning.

I'm sure I could come up with more. But right now, dammit, I'm drooling and need to go find a mop. :)

[jadefu.livejournal.com]

Craft projects! Behold the bacon tiara (http://www.theanticraft.com/archive/beltane08/porkprincess.htm).

[siercia]

Holy crap, that wins the internets.

[pearl-and-rose.livejournal.com]

OMFG. I'd say I need one, but I'd just eat it.

[siercia]

nom nom nom.

[whuffle.livejournal.com]

Halleyscomet and I would gladly take some of the bacon off your hands.... If you want I can give you the cheddar sour cream biscuit recipe that I've sometimes made with bacon crumbled into it. Oh, I can also ask my friend Sunspiral if he needs a largish ammount of bacon for his yearly making of maple bacon ice cream. (Yes, I know, ewww. But he loves the stuff.)

[siercia]

Oooooh, I'd love your recipe!

I need to actually inventory the freezer tonight, if I truly have as much as I think I do, we can probably make a donation =)

[whuffle.livejournal.com]

This is my second favorite biscuit recipe to use. (My favorite being the one my friend's husband makes which I can't really pass along because its one of those things you learn by doing with someone....) The biscuit recipe I use for the bacon is actually this shortcake recipe (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/CHILI-CON-CARNE-WITH-CHILI-CHEDDAR-SHORTCAKES-10299) from epicurious.com

I've found the recipe to be very adaptable. I used some weird types of flour one time and it still worked great. (Spelt flour and oat flour) I've enjoyed putting some crumbled dried chilis from our garden into this as well as some bacon.

[kdinconn.livejournal.com]

Bacon + Summer Picnics = Baked beans

[whuffle.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I could also recommend using some of the bacon for making Italian Ribolitta soup. Usually people put some fatback in the soup to help flavor it. You can also use the ham for making split pea soup.

[halleyscomet.livejournal.com]

Grill or bake the ham steaks.

cut into bite size pieces.

Toss with cooked egg noodles, butter and hard cheese.

Serve with a vegetable side dish. Canned beans or steamed collards are the two traditional side dishes, depending on where in the country you're from.

[dodging-fate.livejournal.com]

bacon... BLTs are always good... or cook some up to crumble on loaded baked potatoes, in omlettes, on salads, nachos etc.

I love hamsteak cubed and added to cassaroles, mac and cheese, omlettes, soups, etc.

I would have trouble with getting that much all the time, though... primarily because of the sodium content in those meats!

[bit-of-muslin.livejournal.com]

I love broccoli salad with bacon :)

[siercia]

Broccoli... salad?

Do you have a recipe you'd care to share?

[bit-of-muslin.livejournal.com]

Here's a pretty close approximation :)
Maybe it's a southern thing? I actually never had it until I met cfred but it is now one of my favorite things. YMMV, of course :)

http://www.grouprecipes.com/3613/broccoli-salad.html

[rawrin.livejournal.com]

The broccoli salads I have known involve teeny broccoli florets with lots of mayonnaise and shredded cheddar cheese. Add-ins might be almonds, apples, onions, sunflower seeds, raisins, or crumbled bits of bacon (not all of them at once, of course).

[thespian.livejournal.com]

donate them for the bacon party? :-)

http://thespian.livejournal.com/1214445.html

[ornerie.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I like ham salad better than I like ham :)

run it through the coarse grinder of your kitchenaide sausage attatchment and mix it with whatever floats your boat. heck you could even turn it into some really yummy rillettes and terrines and stuff!

[siercia]

Sadly, I have no meat grinder attachment =(.

I bet I could come close in my food processor though. And I do love some ham salad.

[ornerie.livejournal.com]

do it in small batches so you dont end up with pate :)

[skreeky]

Yeh, no kidding. Last month I did something to a ham steak that was "Hey, this isn't bad at all, I kinda like it" and of course now I have NO IDEA what it was, not even one ingredient, so I'll never find the recipe again. Suck.

So this month I'm going to try a lime marinade thingy. I'll let you know how it goes.

Yeh right on the cubed ham ideas. That'll be great for the leftovers. I don't think it was clear that when we say BIG ham steak, we're talking about a couple of pounds EACH, and nothing needs more than a couple ounces of cubed ham. *eyeroll*

Our bacon tends to accumulate until we host a brunch, at which three pounds disappears in 8 minutes. I save the fat to cook with because I'm not afraid of cholesterol and if that's not a concern then it's just a cooking fat with an excellent flavor. Particularly in sauted mushrooms and greens. Can't be beat.

[siercia]

See, I knew *you* would understand!

I do love the bacon fat for cooking. Yum!

And if we ate breakfast at home all the time, we could probably get through it all, but weekend home breakfasts are only two or three a month.

You make a good point about carving off small hunks for seasoning - that it's packaged a pound (or more) at a time is one of the problems, since we can't eat an entire pound in one meal (well, we *could*, but we won't).

[apers.livejournal.com]

split pea soup with ham :)

[pearl-and-rose.livejournal.com]

We eat hamsteaks a lot (more than we should.) You just pop them in the pan and heat them on each side for a few minutes -- you're just aiming for "hot," nothing else.

We eat ours with grits (even for dinner) or with tater tots or mashed potatoes. They're quite tasty. They taste like good sandwich ham, only thicker.

[pearl-and-rose.livejournal.com]

Also, a little bacon in potato salad is quite good.

[skreeky]

I think the idea is more, what should a person who doesn't like ham do with a ham steak to make it more than merely tolerable. I would never choose to eat ham. Yet, I receive several pounds of it every month, and certainly don't hate it enough to throw it away. So there we are eating ham, AGAIN. Blah. I really don't like ham. It's dry and tough. but it sits there in the freezer STARING at me until I grit my teeth and decide it's ham day.

[pearl-and-rose.livejournal.com]

Ah. I missed that she wasn't fond of the taste.

Might I suggest wrapping the ham steak in bacon?

[siercia]

*snicker*

I actually like ham - but the way this place processes their ham, I don't like so much. Turns out I seem to like my ham very fake/processed, and this is generally very fresh instead. It isn't even so much the taste as it is the smell, which is kind of weird.

[skreeky]

I may have been known from time to time to perhaps fry ham slab in bacon fat.

Of course, even better is bacon fried bacon.

[halleyscomet.livejournal.com]

I direct you to Three Panel Soul (http://www.threepanelsoul.com/view.php?date=2008-06-17) for clarification on what to do with all that bacon.

[siercia]

Hee.

That is just weird

[(Anonymous)]

Try grinding them up and making your own deviled ham which you can use to make stuffed tomatoes or maybe stuffed eggplant. Maybe even stuffed zuccini. (However the hell you spell it). You know those monsters are going to be ubiquitous soon and it's one way to get rid of them.

[skreeky]

BWT, I've actually had decent luck if you just want a *little* bacon at a time for a recipe, with opening it frozen and keeping it in a ziplock freezer bag. The fat content is high enough that it's possible to shave off bacon bits from the frozen hunk without having to thaw it and be stuck with the whole pound at once. Presto! Flavoring for the green beans!

[dollraves.livejournal.com]

The ham would probably do nicely in some fried rice (http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_15763,00.html).

[dollraves.livejournal.com]

Oh, and a good bacon quiche will take a pound of bacon!

[musemom.livejournal.com]

you can make potatoes au gratin with the ham, you can add to any beans you like including baked beans. You can grill it with pineapple and brown sugar glaze (yummy!) It is fabulous in a good potato soup, pea soup and some mushroom soups.

[rudbekia.livejournal.com]

Too much.... bacon? I do not believe that is possible.

[gala.livejournal.com]

Four pounds of bacon....

That's a lot of scallops.

We found a delicious ham and cheese casserole in Joy of Cooking that uses ham steaks, gruyere, and we may have added broccoli for some green. And my family's pasta salad also uses cubed breakfast ham, for which you could sub the ham steaks. I'll send you the recipes if you're interested.

[trilobits.livejournal.com]

Mom used to put Ham Steaks in the Oven, with a slice of pineapple on top.