Overloaded with Ham

Things to do with Easter ham leftovers:






Cuban Sandwiches










Honey Ham and Sherried Mushroom Soup





If anyone wants my recipe for a Cuban sandwich, let me know. :)

Also, I am a huge fan of Cuban sandwiches and I'm not always in the mood to make them, any suggestions for a good Cuban restaurant in the area? I am so craving a Cuban sandwich right now! Almost tempted to make a weekend trip to ATL to get a Kool's Korner Cuban. YUM!

Early Easter Feast

I know it's ridiculous...I'm really slacking on posting these days. Instead of spewing out excuses, I'll just make this short and sweet so I can catch up to my most recent dishes.

The day before Easter, I picked my brother up in Baltimore after my grad school class lab, stuffed my brother with early Easter dinner and put him back on a train back up to Baltimore all in a few hours. We did manage to get some of the dishes done ahead of time and AC was able to get all the stuff done on my requested to-do list so the major cooking on Saturday really only involved the ham. I have never made a ham before and if you get it already spiral-cut, it's pretty easy to make the glaze that is almost like the glaze on the store-bought Honey-Baked(TM) ham and voilà!

To accompany the ham, we had ambrosia (food of the gods!), scalloped pineapple, roasted asparagus, assorted tasty breads, home-made mashed potatoes...













...and a disastrous caramel crunch and vanilla ice-cream cake.














The apartment was simply too hot to keep the ice cream still on the cake layers. If closed your eyes and ate quickly, it really was a mighty fine cake :)

I'm never doing that again.

Seared Salmon with Tomatillo Coulis

I really hope that making recipes which incorporate a coulis doesn't make me a food snob. In case you don't know what I'm talking about, here's a definition of coulis (see green substance resting on the piece of salmon).

AC and I have been watching a relatively new reality show (*gasp* - yet a new reality show has made it to the airwaves?) called Top Chef and one of the more obnoxious contestants always manages always to incorporate a coulis into all his recipes. He also is WAY too creative for his own good and the king of crazy fusion - check this recipe he made for a challenge that was aimed at housewives. Ridiculous! But I digress...if any of his famed coulis (how do you make that word plural?) are half as good as this one, then I approve of his snobbery.

Overall, the recipe for Seared Salmon with Tomatillo Coulis was incredible.

I really have nothing to complain about but definitely have learned a few good things from this cooking experience.

#1 - Incorporating fresh herbs into shallow slits on the surface of fish results in an incredibly tasty dish.
#2 - I love my food processor and seriously don't know how we'd cook without it.
#3 - Bring on more coulis!

On a side note, a friend bought me a mini tripod for my birthday and a book on photography to help me out with my food photos. Plus, she knows I've been dying for a SLR digital camera so she wants me to be informed before I make the splurge. I did not get a chance to fully utilize the tripod for this picture because I still need to figure out how to rotate the tripod 90 degrees to get a nice shot from above. I'm working on it though....Thanks again! Very thoughtful gift.

Leek, Potato and Tarragon Soup

My parents were in town over the weekend to visit me and my brother who is attending school in Baltimore. They have always heard me talk about cooking but I think they had yet to have a full meal cooked by me. I made the snapper recipe which I posted about on February 8 along with a newly found recipe called Leek, Potato and Tarragon Soup. My dad is very health-conscious so I was concerned about making a creamy soup but this recipe smartly uses a combination of plain yogurt and light whipping cream instead of heavy whipping cream. I would have taken a picture of the whole spread but I forgot...but here's picture of the next day's leftover.

Thanks for all the great photography tips. Maybe now that we are in daylight savings time, I can actually cook and photograph a meal during daylight. I took this picture in the kitchen with the flash off - I think I got somewhat better results but my laminate countertop doesn't provide a pretty background.

But back to the soup...I highly recommend this soup but I would add a few more potatoes to make the soup a bit chunkier and more substantial to suffice as a meal on its own. My brother got shipped back up to school the day before so he didn't get to enjoy the food but I'm sure he had some tasty n' greasy college cuisine. Sorry, DB!

On a side note, did anyone actually enjoy their college dining hall food? :)