Week O' Ham.

If you guys haven't figured it out I like a good deal. Coupons, sales, if it means saving some money. I'm in.

Last weekend my sister and I headed down to Auburn to celebrate my mom's "significant" birthday. I'm not giving it away, because we all know how women don't like to tell their age. While we were down there my stepdad decided to play "Let's Make a deal"... for anyone who doesn't remember that show. It's the game show where the host offers a guest in the audience money or they can take whatever is behind a door... sometimes it works out good. Sometimes they get Zoinked. When my stepdad decided to play the game. I decided ahhh what the hell let's just go for it.

I chose to make the deal with him. I told him I'd buy him an Auburn Championship sweatshirt in return he would give me a piece of paper.... sounds like an iffy deal right. Well the paper was actually a coupon for a Honey Baked Ham!!! SCORE for me.

So I bought him his 22 dollar sweatshirt. We went to pick up the Ham, and of course they happen to be out of their 7 pound ham. So they gave me an 8 pound ham instead. SCORE AGAIN. It was a 60 dollar ham that I got for 22 dollars!! 48 dollar savings!

Here is where it gets even funnier. As you could have guessed we have been eating ham all week. We even invited my In Laws over to help us knock some of it out. So Wednesday my Mother in Law calls laughing. Michael's (my husband) grandmother went shopping and found a ham on sale... and is cooking it tonight for dinner. So we get to go out there and have a ham dinner. AGAIN. Haha (sort of)

So just in case anyone is counting.

This morning eggs with ham,

Lunch- Ham with chips and salsa

Dinner- Some for of ham with sides...

I AM OFFICIALLY DECLARING THIS THE WEEK O' HAM.

The upside is next week I'm making Cajun White beans with the ham bone!! I'm gonna get every last bit out of that ham I can!!

Cajun White bean Soup

It was cold over the weekend. I mean like highs in the 50's here. So not cool (pardon the pun), but I wanted a little fall like weather. Somewhere in the upper 60's-70's... at least for a couple weeks. On the upside, I got to pull out this Soup recipe from the Cajun Encyclopedia. It made a HUGE potful, so we had my in-laws over to enjoy it with us.

It was a first for me, buying ham hocks... which for me I had always laughed at the odd pig parts that certain grocery stores carried, only this week to find myself looking for the "best" ham hock of the bunch... YEP, never thought I would have done that one. But it was so worth it.

The one thing about this recipe, is that you have to soak the beans overnight prior to cooking them. So it's not one of those throw together at the last minute recipe. But it's so good and worth the time spent on it.

Cajun White Bean Soup (makes 12 servings)

WW pts: 6 pts a serving

1- 1 lb package of dried great northern beans

2 ham hocks

1 link of smoked sausage, diced

1/3 cup olive oil

2 cups diced onions

2 cups diced celery

1 cup diced bell pepper (I used green)

1/4 cup minced garlic

2- 15 oz. cans diced tomatoes, no salt added

water as needed

1 bay leaf

salt and cracked pepper to taste

Presoak dried beans overnight. Drain and wash beans again before cooking. In a 2 gallon pot (or largest you've got), heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onions , celery, peppers, garlic. Saute for 5 minutes, then add drained tomatoes. Add sausage and cook 3-5 minutes more. Then add ham hocks. Stir in beans and cook for 2 minutes. Pour in enough water to cover beans by 2 inches. Bring to a rolling boil, reduce to simmer and cook, stirring occasionally for about an hour. Once beans begin to become tender, mash them against the side of pot to create creaminess. Season with bay leaf, salt and pepper. Simmer approximately 1 1/2-2 hours, continuing to stir and mash beans occasionally. Soup is ready when it has reached the creamy consistency of cream of mushroom soup. I think I let ours cook 5 hours, adding a little more water about 1/2 way through.

Surprise dinner.

I love when your cleaning out the freezer and find something that you didn't know you had. Ok so that applies to anything in life. Money in your pocket, cute shoes in your closet, chocolate in the freezer. But today it was a chunk of ham that we had over Christmas 09.. Yes I realize that is sad, but who cares. It was still edible.

So I decided to make a Ham and Potato casserole. Get rid of 2 things at once, since I had some "older" potatoes sitting in the cupboard. I forgot how good a simple dish like this is.

Ham & Potato Casserole (makes 6 servings)

WW pts: 4 pts a serving

2 Tbsp light butter

1/2 medium onion, diced

3 Tbsp whole wheat flour

1 tsp Pepper

2 1/2 cups fat free milk

5 medium potatoes, sliced

2 cups ham, visible fat cut off, cut into chunks

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease the bottom of a casserole dish with PAM. Melt butter in a saucepan, then cook onion 3-5 minutes. Stir in flour, pepper. Cook stirring constantly until smooth. Remove from heat. Add milk. Return to heat, bring to boiling, stirring constantly for 1 minute.

Slice potatoes and ham, them mix together in the bottom of casserole dish. Then pour milk mixture over ham and potatoes. Cover with foil and place in oven for 30 minutes. Then remove foil and cook for 1 hour or until Potatoes are tender.

We made green beans to go with the casserole.

*The only thing that might have made it better was maybe some velveeta melted into the milk mixture to make it "cheesy"... but I didn't have any on hand.