Sweet Saturday!

Well, I didn't sleep until noon (what ever happened to those days?), but woke up at 8:30 AM. So, onto work (I'll shave and shower later)!

I cut up the sliced ham into two packages, one for my freezer and one for Mom. Now, if you ever had a spiral cut ham, you know that only about half is cut in those nice slices. That was the parts that went into the first two packs. The next part is more difficult. I cut off the chunks that were missed by the slicer. I probably got another pound off that way. I carefully trimmed off the outer skin (a honey-baked ham has WAY too much sugar on the outside for my soup). I then scraped the outside of the remaining bone/ham to get off as much as the glaze as I could.

Next, I diced the aromatics: one cup of yellow onion, 1/2 cup of carrots and 1/2 cup of celery. I saut�ed them in about a tablespoon of bacon grease. After they got soft, I added two tablespoons of minced garlic. Then I made up my herb bundle of 1 tablespoon dried parsley, 1 teaspoon dried thyme, 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper and 1 large bay leaf and put that in one of my kitchen handkerchiefs. I tied it with kitchen string and left enough so I can tie it to the handle of the Dutch oven. Next, I peeled and quartered four small potatoes. Those went into the pot.

I put in my ham bone, tied the herb bundle to one of the handles, drained the green peas, rinsed them off and put them in as well. Last, I added a whole box (32 ounces) of Kitchen Basics chicken stock (which is what I use when I'm out of homemade). I brought that up to a boil, turned it down to simmer, covered it and then will just let it be for 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

I washed up all the various kitchen utensils I used so that whatever Carla needs, it will be ready. Then I started using the electric sweeper to get up all Caley's cat hair throughout the house.

Luanne called just before 1:00 PM. She's feeling a lot better and getting around with her crutches. She corrected me about having a torn ligament reattached. She said the doctor told her the ligament was not torn but frayed, like an old rope. First time I ever heard of that!

After we hung up, I finished tidying up the house. Then I went in to take a nap. Jake and Carla woke me up. To my embarrassment, I realized I still hadn't taken a shower yet! But, stinky or not, I have visitors!!

So, I took the chicken wings out of the marinade and put them on my broiler pan. I broiled them 8 minutes on the first side and 10 on the other. When they were cool enough, we munched them down with the garlic-blue cheese sauce. Not bad, not bad at all. We visited while I used my immersion blender to puree the soup (after removing the ham bone and herb bundle). Then I diced up about a pound of the ham I'd removed the glaze from and put the chunks into the soup. Not sure why, but I didn't ask them to taste it, nor did they offer. It just didn't come up, I guess. Strange, as I would have valued their input. I turned it back on simmer to let the new ham get happy with the soup for a while.

Now it was Carla's turn to cook. Oh, if you are thinking Jake got off easy, think again. He baked the ciabatta bread that was made into the steak sandwiches. Hmmm... cinnamon buns, ciabatta bread, the guy's doing a LOT of baking! We Foodies will have to keep and eye on him, lol!

She started by caramelizing a whole big sweet onion she has sliced. Then she pan seared some beautiful beef tenderloins to medium rare. She had made homemade mayonnaise back at her house and brought that, and now mixed it with horseradish. Jake sliced the ciabatta bread in half, they spread the horseradish/mayonnaise mixture on each side, added the steak (which was cut to about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thin slices) and topped it with fresh arugula.

She got out the bowl of potato salad she had, again, made back at home. And, then we ate... Oh, my, that was GOOD!!!

They cleaned up the kitchen and then left around 7:00 PM (but leaving me the remaining steak sandwich and the potato salad!) I sat down on the couch to read my book and around 8:00 PM, my daughter Melissa called. We talked a long while (as always) mostly about her babysitting Gavin (Linnea is on a business trip and Dustin is at school). She's funny! You would think she is the first grandma EVER, listening to her stories. She really dotes on that little boy!

After hanging up from her, I went back to my book. I have apparently caught up on all the "Prey" books I'd read, back in the day, and this one must have been written after that, I guess. Anyway, I've never read it and find it fascinating. About 10:30, I decided a little snack would be nice, but I ended up eating all the leftover potato salad!

I finally quit reading near midnight and went to sleep.