Pork Cubanos

I am obsessed with food trucks.  I find it fascinating that great food, and lots of it, can come out of such a small, mobile space.  Although, I would not want to work in one.  How could it not be steamy hot in there?!  Because of my obsession, I recently watched the movie Chef.  Have you seen it?  The movie is pretty good but I was most excited about the drool worthy Cubanos they show in the movie.  Los Angeles chef, Roy Choi, published the recipe used in the movie on people.com.  You can click to link to the recipe below.  I was determined to make these myself.  I made the pork roast with some black beans and rice the first night.  Then we made the sandwiches the second night with the leftover roast.  Best. Sandwich. Ever.  Delicious!  I will post the recipes and pictures for the pork roast and rice soon!

Mojo Pork Cubanos - Click to link to the recipe.

Chef Salad

Another salad that is interesting and tasty enough for a manly man!  My husband loved this chef salad.  I know you all probably don't really need a recipe for salad, but I always find it helpful to see salad recipes to inspire me!  So, I thought I would share.

Chef Salad

2 c Mixed greens

½-1 c Cooked ham cubes*

¼ c Carrot, shredded

¼ c Cheese, shredded 

¼ c Black olives, sliced

½ c English cucumber, sliced and quartered

½ c Grape tomatoes, cut in half

1-2 T Ranch (We like Wishbone Ranch, which is egg-free and gluten-free.)

In a large bowl, combined desired amount of each ingredient, omit some, add others, depending on your tastes.  I find that if you add a little dressing and mix it into the salad, then you can get away with using a lot less dressing.

The quantities I listed above are great for one large salad.  According to my calorie counting ap, it is only about 400-600 calories.  That is not bad at all for a filling, delicious lunch.

*The first time I made this salad, I used leftover ham that we had in the freezer from our Easter dinner.  I have also bought packaged cubed ham from the grocery store.  I like to sear my ham in a skillet to brown it up a little, which enhances the flavor and dries up any excess moisture on your ham pieces.  You don’t need to add oil or anything to the pan.  If you are on a gluten-free diet, make sure your ham is gluten-free.

Easter {Egg-free}

Easter is only a week away!  Because the date changes every year, it always sneaks up on me.  I am still trying to decide what we should have for Easter dinner.  I always serve ham for Easter, so that is decided.  I am thinking about maybe baked potatoes and green beans.  Some other things things that have been on menu in the past...

Resurrection Rolls (EF) - We make these with the kids Easter morning.

Lemon Cream Pie (EF,) - I made this for our Easter dinner last year.  It is one of my husband's favorites!

Easter Cupcakes (EF) - We made these fun cupcakes the past two years.  I think we may skip these this year and have only one dessert in an attempt to cut back our holiday indulgences.

Easy Banana Pudding (EF) - I think this creamy light pudding is a pretty color for Easter.  Plus, I really like it!  I may make this for our Easter dinner dessert this year.

Slow-cooker Ham and Beans (EF, DF, GF) - This is what I plan to do with my leftover ham.  Yummy!

Ham and Cheese Crescents

Techincally, summer hasn't even started yet and my schedule is already crazy busy.  So, I am way behind on posting ideas for June.  I am going to post something quick I made a while ago but never posted.  If you need a quick easy summer meal, try these ham and cheese crescents.

If you like this recipe,  you may also like Pizza Roll Ups (EF).

 
Ham and Cheese Crescents

2 tubes of refrigerated crescent rolls
16 think slices of ham
8 slices of cheese, halved

Fold up ham and place with half a slice of cheese on unrolled crescent.  Rull up and put seam side down on baking sheet.  Bake according to the directions on the crescent roll tube.

Makes 16

Ham and Beans {Slow-cooker}

Winter is almost over and Spring is upon us.  So, I thought I would post one more cozy winter recipe in our last few days of winter.  I make my recipe for Slow Cooker Pinto Beans (EF, DF, GF) often.  One of the times I was picking up dried pinto beans at the grocery store, I noticed a dried bag of bean medley.  This mixture of dried beans intrigued me.  I wanted to find something delicious to make with them that would expose my family to some legumes we don't regularly eat.  When my husband saw the bag laid out on my counter, he was skeptical.  But he really enjoyed the end result as did the kids, especially when it was served with Honey Wheat Cornbread (EF, DF).

We enjoyed this recipe so much.  I think I will use leftover Easter ham to make it again soon!

Ham and Beans {Slow Cooker}

6 c water for soaking

6 c water for cooking

4 cups ham, chopped

1 lb dried beans*

1 lg sweet onion

6 cloves garlic, minced

2 t sea salt

1 t black pepper

The night before, rinse beans and discard any obviously shriveled and/or discolored beans.  Put in slow cooker with 6 cups of water.  Put on lid and soak the beans overnight. 

In the morning, drain soaking beans and re-rinse.  Put beans back into the slow-cooker.  Peel onion leaving it whole and place in the beans.  Do not chop or slice the onion.  This allows you to remove it after cooking but still benefit from the flavor.  Add 6 cups of water for cooking, ham, minced garlic, salt and pepper.  Cook beans on high for 8 hours.  Serve with cornbread.  

*I used a bean medley and we loved it!  It had dried great northern beans, pinto beans, green split pea, small red bean, baby lima bean, light red kidney beans, small white beans, black eye peas, pink beans, lentils, yellow split peas, large lima beans, black beans, dark red kidney beans and garbanzo beans.

Gluten-free notes:  If you have a gluten allergy, double check your ham ingredients to make sure they do not contain gluten.

Main dish – serves 4-6