Ham and Cheese Casserole. I am th Queen of leftovers. I hate waste and love to use everything up.  I especially love leftover ham recipes which make great use of any ham you have in the house. 

You don't always have to use leftover ham though, as you can also purchase a chunk of boiled ham at the shops which is great for things like this.

 

Today, however, I had some baked ham leftover from the holidays the other day and so I decided to make a delicious casserole with them.  

We were all sandwiched out! Mom always made sweet and sour ham with her leftover ham, but we weren't feeling much like that either.

 

Plus I had some fresh noodles whose sell by date was looming.  I hate waste and so decided to take advantage of both these things and make a tasty casserole.

 

It was pretty basic, and I did use a tin of cream of chicken soup.  You could however make a basic cream sauce, flavouring it with a bit of chicken bouillon if you wanted to.

 

I am not a soup snob and I do use it from time to time, especially when I am wanting to make a quick and simple casserole.

 

I also had some cheese leftover from the holidays, Cheddar and red Leicester  So I used up some of them as well.

 

They have very similar flavours so you could use all cheddar if you want to.  Both are hard cheeses and the red Leicester has been coloured orange. Most of our Cheddars here will be found in their natural, white state.

 

Both cheeses are produced in a very similar manner, but red Leicester has a moister, crumblier texture and a somewhat milder flavour.

 

I added thawed frozen green beans for a bit more colour and some texture.  Just cover them with boiling water, let them thaw and then drain well before using.

 

Mine were whole beans and so I used my kitchen scissors to cut them down into a more manageable size.

 

You could use any vegetable you wanted to use or even a combination of vegetables. Corn would be nice as would peas and carrots.

 

I topped the casserole with some cracker crumbs and a bit more cheese.  I find casseroles are always nice when you have a bit of a crunchy topping to enjoy!

 

This was quick, easy and delicious.  You could double the recipe if you had more ham you wanted to use up and freeze one casserole for a later time.

It is supposed to be 2 to 3 servings, but I'll be honest, for our appetites it is more like 4 servings. 

 

It all depends on how big of an eater you are. We are small eaters.

 

A tossed salad would be very nice on the side. My pictures are not so great as we have had some very dark and gloomy days. 

 

I like to use natural light for my photos if I can, so I apologise if they are a bit dark!

  

We enjoyed it simply with some buttered bread (for my husband) and pickled beets. I do so love pickled beets!

 

So that's all of the Christmas leftovers gone now.  We still have Christmas Cake, but that is a good keeper and my husband will make short work of that over the next weeks.  I also have some Christmas pudding, which he will also enjoy. 

 Those types of things never really go off.  I am relieved that I never did more baking and that I kept things simple here over the holidays and didn't go overboard! 

 

 

London Particular is a delicious Split Pea Soup!  The name comes from the famous fogs of London back in Dickensian times, which came to be known as London Particulars or Pea Soup Fogs. 

Fogs so thick that you could scarce see your hand in front of your face. 

 

From Wikepedia: Pea soup fog (also known as a pea souper, black fog or killer fog) is a very thick and often yellowish, greenish or blackish fog caused by air pollution that contains soot particulates and the poisonous gas sulphur dioxide. 

Not just common in Dickens's day these heavy fogs continued sporadically throughout the ensuing years.  In fact there was a particularly bad incident  in 1952 which was called "The Great Smog of London,"  which came to be known as one of the worst air-pollution events in the history of  the United Kingdom.

I think actually fogs such as this were quite prevalent throughout Europe, especially in the colder months when people were using their coal fires. My mother had a photograph of me standing in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris in 1959.  You can just barely see me and only the feet of the tower as the fog is so dense and so thick.

 

I dare say those "Pea Souper" fogs were not as near delicious as this fabulous soup, London Particular, which had its beginnings at the Simpson's in the Strand restaurant in London. 

 

This soup is rib-stickingly thick and very delicious, and really quite simple to make!

  

My mother always made us lovely pots of pea soup after we had enjoyed a baked ham either for New Years or Easter.  

We always had a ham on those special occasions and the bone was always used to make a delicious soup.

 

Hers was done in the French Canadian style however, using whole yellow dried peas.  They are not so easy to get these days, and I have never seen them over here.  

We did so love her soup.  She used to make a huge pot of it and we would enjoy it once on the night, with the remainder being frozen for future use. 

 

Always whenever any of us (after we had grown up and left home) made the trip home, she would be certain to feed us a supper of this soup and another of her home baked beans at least once during our stay. 

I can't speak for anyone else, but for myself  I can say that this was something I always looked forward to and enjoyed very much.

 

This is not that soup, but it is just as delicious in a different sort of a way.  Its thick and flavourful  . . . and as I said, very simple to make.

 

You do need to begin by soaking the peas over night, so be prepared, you will need to do this in advance of making the soup, but once you have done that, the soup comes together very quickly. 

 

If you are lucky enough to have homemade ham stock in the freezer, use that.  I have never seen a ham over here sold on the bone and so I have never had a ham bone over here to make stock. 

Instead I relied on ham stock cubes to make my stock. You can also use chicken stock if you wish. 

 

Other than the split peas and stock, there is bacon, carrots, celery and onions.  Simple. 

 

As an homage to my dear sweet mother I chose to add a bay leaf and some Nova Scotia Summer Savory. You can leave those out and the soup will still be delicious, but if you have them to hand, I do recommend.  

You could in also use a bit of dried thyme instead of the savory, if you find that impossible to procure.  I bring mine back with me from Nova Scotia and keep it in my freezer.  It is that precious to me.

 

It takes about an hour and a bit to cook, so not that long really.  Once the peas are nice and tender, you then puree half of the soup.  

I used my immersion blender to do this. (Don't know what I would do without it!)  You can also use a food processor or a regular blender.

 

You then stir the pureed portion of soup back into the pot and reheat the soup gently, seasoning it to taste with salt and plenty of black pepper . . .  ready to be serve ladled into heated bowls . . .

 

Garnished with clippings of crispy bacon and chopped fresh parsley  . . .

 

As always Todd enjoys his soups with a piece or two of buttered bread or a crusty roll . . .

  

The North American in me prefers mine with crisp crackers and I always crumble some of them into the soup.  A "common" practice I know . . .  but a leftover from my childhood.  The heart wants what the heart wants  . . .

 

When I was a child I would crumble so many crackers into my soup that it became almost pudding-like . . .  I so enjoyed that.  Tomato soup was especially good this way, with a knob of butter melted on top. Oh boy, now I am drowning in happy foodie memories.  Yum! 

 

Sausage wasn't something I enjoyed very much when I was growing up. I am not sure why.  I never really began to enjoy them at all until I was a grown woman and cooking my own.  I liked them almost burnt on the outside with catsup for dipping. My father enjoyed them dipped in mayonnaise.  As a child growing up in Canada, in my experience at least, there was only one kind of sausage.  Ordinary breakfast sausage, long thin cylinders of meat, stuffed into skins, fatty and flavoured with nutmeg and poultry seasoning. That was it. Growing up in the 50's /60's and early 70's in small communities meant that we were not exposed to outside flavours or choices.  We had what we had, and that was that.

It was not until I was an adult that I experienced another kind of sausage. My sister-in-law who lived in Toronto had studied at the Cordon Bleu and was considered to be an expert in cooking.  We spent the weekend at hers once, and she cooked sausages for us for breakfast.  These were not the sausages of my childhood, they were plump and fat and had a fabulous flavour.  She simmered them slowly in lemon water first and then browned them off in a skillet.  That is when I learnt to love sausage, and in the intervening years have come to enjoy all sorts and varieties.  What she served us that weekend were British Butchers Sausages and they were quite simply gorgeous in my opinion.

One of the most exciting foods I was introduced to moving over here to the UK was the great British Sausage, or Bangers as they are also lovingly called, and let me tell you, they have about as many different kinds as they do areas and counties here, a whole cornucopia of wonderful flavours, some of them quite spectacular. I have my favourites. 

 

The word "sausage" comes from the Latin, "salsicius", prepared by salting, which in turn comes from Salsus, meaning "salted."Sausages have been produced, eaten and enjoyed in Great Britain since Roman times. The Anglo-Saxons developed their own varieties and the Normans brought French ideas into the mix, including pure pork sausages, black puddings (made with blood) and the andouille, an entrail sausage known in England as chitterlings. 

You will find sausages in just about every country in the world, each with their own spin on this meat, fresh, dried and everything in between. What is it that makes British sausage stand out from the rest?  What is it about British sausage that makes it so great?  

For one we have such a wide variety to choose from . . .  Yorkshire, Oxford  . . . Cambridge, Cumberland . . .  Country Pork, and those are just the basics.  We stuff them with leeks and cheeses, spring onions, caramelised onions, mustard, honey, etc.  We enjoy them for breakfast and we enjoy them for lunch.  We love them for teatime, or high tea, and dinner.  We eat them in baguettes and rolled up in puff pastry.  Here in the UK, we just love our sausages, full stop!

In days of old they would have been dried and salted, perhaps even smoked, for preservation. These days for the most part however,  with the modern wonders of refrigeration, we tend to enjoy them fresh.  You can find them in other countries, but I have heard again and again how much people miss British Sausages where they live and how they can't find them, so first up I am going to give you a recipe which you can use to make your own homemade Basic British Pork Sausages 

Note - you can replace the shoulder and cheeks with 2 1/2 pounds of pork belly, reducing the amount of pork fat by about 1/3 of a pound.  

My absolute favourite of all the sausages has to be Cumberland sausage.  It is said to be the meatiest of all the sausages and has a very distinctive peppery flavour that I really enjoy. At one time they used to be made from a special breed of pig, which unfortunately died out back in the late 50's/early 60's. 

One of the most recognisable features of Cumberland sausage is that it is not twisted into links, but rather long length are shaped and rolled into a "Catherine Wheel" shape.  Some of them can be quite long and in Cumbria you actually buy the by the length rather than the weight.  We have had some really delicious ones when we have been staying up in Cumbria, that I have never been able to find anywhere else.  Traditionally they are flavoured with a mix of cayenne pepper, white pepper, ground nutmeg and salt, a combination which I find extremely delicious. Its nice and peppery.  If you want to have a try at making your own (and I hope that you do), it is best for you to just pipe the meat into two or three long sausages and then coil them into Cumberlands when done. You can then pan fry, grill or roast them as desired.  

TOAD IN THE HOLE - a British Comfort-food Favourite

A delightful and tasty comfort-food-recipe I discovered shortly after I arrived here was a lovely dish called Toad in the Hole. I had often heard about this British delicacy but had never had any idea of what it was let alone ever had the chance to try it. I soon learnt that it had nothing to do with holes, dirt, or even toads for that matter!

 

Sausage with Autumn Mash. 

 

Orchard Pan Roast with Sausages. 

 

Sage Roasted Bangers with Mash and Onion Gravy.  

 

Sticky Bangers with Chive & Buttermilk Mash. 

 

Sticky Sausage Tray Bake.

 

Dublin Coddle. 

 

Herby Sausages with Parsnip Mash and Stir Fried Cabbage. 

 

Cider and Honey Braised Sausages.  

 

Sticky Maple Bangers with Irish Champ.  

And there you have it, all I know about sausages.  How to make your own British Sausages, and a few ideas on how to cook them once you have them made!

Up Tomorrow:  Crispy Herbed Potato Rosettes.