I learned more about hams this week. I didn't know the spiral cut hams are already cooked.

[brewens]

The only whole bone in ham I could get at Walmart was a spiral cut. Good thing I saw that t was already cooked on the label before I gave it the same bake time I had used on previous whole hams.

Then when carving it up and vacuum packing it for the freezer, I realized I was getting a whole lot more ham off of that 11 pounder than I had the others of similar size. Duh! That must have been about a 20 pounder before they cooked it. I'm new to this all whole foods home cooking thing, but learning fast.

Making soups stock with the bone today and a batch of navy bean and ham soup tomorrow. Just the way my house smells doing this stuff makes it almost worth it by itself. Eating better and healthier has been great.

[Diamond_Dog]

1. I thought all hams were already cooked?

Your soup sounds delicious. 🙂

[SoCalNative]

2. Most of the ones sold in the U.S.

are already cured and cooked.

[brewens]

9. There must be some difference. The hams I had before were smoked/cured, but does that mean fully

cooked? I baked them to the required temperature and those lost way more weight and shrunk a lot more than the spiral cut. They all turned out good.

[yellowdogintexas]

17. It will say fully cooked on the label somewhere if it is.

I grew up around farmers who raised pigs and cured their own hams and sausage

Salted it down and hung it the smokehouse for I forget how many days.

With those you have to leach out the salt; My grandmother would put her ham in a lardstand, fill the lardstand with water and boil it. After it had boiled the right amount of time, she took it off the stove and wrapped the container in old quilts. I helped her do it a couple of times because the lardstand full of boiling water and ham was very heavy.

Most of the time the ham was baked to restore moisture to the meat

It comes out kind of like prosciutto. Salty as hell.

[snowybirdie]

3. Don't feel bad

I'd been cooking for over 40 years before I found that out. Always wondered why they were so dry.

[Cracklin Charlie]

4. Mmm, navy beans.

I think I’ll make soup.

Aldi sells a good ham.

[zeusdogmom]

7. Aldi has spiral cut hams on sale this week for 89 cents a pound

There is one in my refrigerator just waiting to be used.

[yellowdogintexas]

18. cross cut ham bone is essential for red beans and rice.

Now I want some

My daughter substitutes smoked turkey legs for ham in southern style bean dishes.

Her husband's family are former Muslims and do not eat pork but they love the beans she makes.
The family likes black eyed peas but did not know about the good luck for New Years until she joined the family. So now they have Hoppin John and cornbread.

[Cracklin Charlie]

20. I had black eyed peas tonight.

With my macaroni and cheese. I love them.

We have sautéed cabbage with our black eyed peas for New Years. I heard the Chinese eat cabbage for good luck for New Years, and I love sautéed cabbage with my black eye peas, so we combined the traditions.

My dad used to grow black eyed peas in our garden. We had fresh peas and cornbread just about every night in the summer. With sliced tomatoes. Mmmm.

[soothsayer]

5. They treat spirals with chemicals to keep the meat moist and such

Kinda like buying grated cheese, which is also fine but not as pure as when you grate it yourself.

They’re convenient, but I go for the real deal (drive an hour and a half to get it, too!).

Mmmm. Ham and horseradish and potato salad and coleslaw.

[Dave in VA]

6. Sounds wonderful!

Know what I'm going to be fixing this weekend. Have a frozen ham bone left over from the holidays. Love DU. So inspiring in so many ways!

[elleng]

8. We made some good soups, with bones left after parties

where we served spiral cut hams, good parties and good soups!

[csziggy]

10. I love the spiral cut hams and that's pretty much all I buy

I buy one when they are on sale at Christmas time. I don't cook them at all, just cut the sliced part off and package the slices in batches enough for 6-8 servings. Then I cut the unsliced ham off the bone, cube or chop it up and package in1-2 cup batches. I end up with almost enough ham for the two of us for a year. Oh, and the bone goes into the pot when I make my New Year's Hopping John.

Most years I buy a turkey when they are on sale around Thanksgiving, cook it and cut it up in batches for the freezer. I stew the bones with the trimmings from the vegetables I use in the dressing and make a big batch of turkey broth, which is frozen to take out to make dressing for the frozen turkey.

My freezer stays pretty well stocked most of the time. I'm due to go back to Costco and buy a pork loin - that makes a lot of boneless chops, maybe a small roast, and trimmings for stir fry. With no bones, it's really easy to cut up and I can make the chops as thick or thin as I want. One year I cut pockets into them, but I ended up with huge chops that really didn't hold all that much stuffing so I'm not doing that again.

[brewens]

11. I have a bunch of my Thanksgiving turkey left, and most of one of those Costco pork loins

cut into chops in the freezer. One day I was complaining to a friend about the Costco chops being so thick I had to split them. She said I might as well buy a whole pork loin and cut them myself as long as I was having to do it to their chops. I wish I would have realized that a long time ago.

[csziggy]

12. My biggest problem with the Costco pork loins is that they are big

Well, that is true of any full pork loin. There are only two of us so we either need to eat a lot of pork for a while or they start getting freezer burn. I could solve that by buying one of those vacuum pack things, but that's just another gadget in the kitchen and I hate buying more stuff.

I fell into the loin cutting deal with a YouTube video I happened on, I think while I was looking for how to spatchcock a chicken. That's another great thing to try, just cut out the backbone, flatten the chicken, and roast it. I just did that the other day with carrots, celery, yukon gold potatoes, Vidalia onion, sprigs of fresh thyme and rosemary, and a lemon cut up over the top of everything. Yum. Right now the remains of the chicken are in the crockpot making stock.

[brewens]

13. The heat sealer is essential. Especially for me as a single guy. I roasted a chicken last week and

made soup. I also made a whole 5lb bag of potatoes into mashed potatoes and froze most of that. I hope those keep well and nuke up nicely. No more instant potatoes, though they are way better than they used to be.

[csziggy]

14. Maybe I'll take that step for a heat sealer

I'll have to research them. What brand/model do you have?

[brewens]

15. Just the cheapest Seal a meal job from Wally World. I think it was something like $25 bucks.

It didn't come with many bags. I use those 8" bag rolls. Those are big enough for most stuff.

[yellowdogintexas]

16. cut them into sections and wrap them very tightly in plastic wrap like Saran

then put them in a heavy freezer bag. I usually cut them in 8 inch sections; then they are ready to roast. Double wrapping helps a lot.

Cubed pork loin is really good for green chile stew (or chile verde)

[csziggy]

19. I suppose that would work, but it's still a lot of plastic

Even the vacuum method uses a lot of plastic, but it does end up with less meat wastage. i buy vacuum packed fish from Costco and it is so convenient to have it as single serve amounts - that way we don't have to eat the same thing for days in a row.

That's why I usually cut the loins into chops rather than roasts. I can pull out two, do a quick cook method and we can have something different the next day. With roasts, it's at least two or three days of meals that are the same.

And I wouldn't be able to eat the green chile stew - I'm allergic to anything on the Scoville chart of heat.