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    Hurry Up Ham and Noodles

    By trkingmomoe on Thu, 09/20/2012 - 6:17am |

    Sometimes you just need a quick and easy main dish when you are in a hurry to get something on the table or just plain tired. I love this ham and noodle pasta dish for it‘s creamy hardiness. Pair it up with a salad and crusty bread. You can have this cooked and on the table in a half hour. It is actually faster then a commercial frozen entrée that cooks depend on for quick and easy. Besides being quick and easy, it is also inexpensive to make. It is a good way to use up left over ham or you can buy cubed ham already cooked. I usually find a slice or cubed ham marked down that I freeze for a rainy day.

    There is room for creative substitutes when you don’t have everything on hand. You can use milk or half and half instead of whipping cream. Any good cheese grated will work well only changing the flavor slightly. Usually parmesan cheese is a kitchen staple. A few slices of onion finely chopped can be substituted for green onions. What ever pasta you have on hand. This recipe serves 4 but you can double it to feed more.

    Hurry Up Ham and Noodles

    5 cups of uncooked wide noodles

    ¼ cup margarine or butter

    1 cup whipping cream *

    1 ½ cups cubed ham

    ½ cup parmesan cheese grated

    ¼ cup thinly sliced green onions**

    ¼ teaspoon salt

    1/8 teaspoon pepper

    Cook pasta according to package directions. While they are cooking, melt butter in a saucepan then add cream and grated cheese. Stir constantly until melted and hot. Add ham and onion. Continue stirring until ham is heated. (To quicken things up, the ham can be heated in the microwave with the onions before adding to sauce.) Add salt and pepper. Drain pasta and mix in ham sauce and serve.

    * Half and half or milk can also be used. Milk will make a thinner sauce.

    **When feeding small children I leave out the onions.

     

    If you liked this recipe there is more like it at:

    http://trkingmomoe.wordpress.com/

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    Comments

    I make something very similar which I created when my diet forbid aged cheese and I was craving a cheesy pasta

    I start with a roux at the bottom of a saucepan, then stir in milk to make a white sauce,  but before I throw in the chunks of ham, I throw in some chunks of cream cheese, let those melt in. (The cream cheese also allows you to be lousy at making thick white sauce from a roux, hah!) I then usually put in a bit of fresh garlic and a bit of mustard-powder or jar mustard, fresh dill if I have it,

    and then along with the chunks of ham, tiny green peas

    It can then be let to bubble to any desired thickness

    I think egg noodles or fettucine tastes best with this, rather than regular Italian pasta, really makes a difference because of the texture

    Also if you make it with green spinach-fettucine, it makes for a very nice Easter dish, presentation-wise

    It works well as a leftover, as the cream cheese makes it a little hard in the frig (like lasagna), and you can cut an individual serving chunk, stick it in a dish and put it in the micro and it's just as good as it was the day before


    by artappraiser on Fri, 09/21/2012 - 5:47am

    I just remembered, I was inspired by memories from when I was very young, my Mom making cream chipped beef on toast or creamed tuna on toast I wanted something with that flavor and texture again, it stayed in my mind, even though she never cooked stuff like that when more kids came along. (The peas are often in those cream sauce on toast recipes.) I suspect she may have learned it in her home economics class, as she was in high school during WWII, and the cream chipped beef was from the depression era; plus I imagine them getting taught to make a white sauce. I think it had a reputation as a cheap meal, a way to stretch crummy meat and fill your stomach, but as she grew up on a farm with lots of kids, and her immigrant Mom would never had made something like that, she probably thought she was making something fancy that she learned at school. To her at the time, something fancy would be what "career" girls ate at the dime store lunch counter. wink


    by artappraiser on Fri, 09/21/2012 - 6:02am

    Ooh, I'd forgotten cream chipped-beef on toast, now those are some scary memories, especially when I made it myself.


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 09/21/2012 - 6:59am

    I made that when our kids were still at home, too.  My Marine husband called it "Shit on a  Shingle".


    by Ramona on Fri, 09/21/2012 - 7:59am

    SOS is its shorten name.  They still serve it in the military.  I ate my share of it.


    by trkingmomoe on Fri, 09/21/2012 - 2:32pm

    Yes, he said "SOS" when the kids were around!  But, really?  They still serve it?  I'll have to tell him.


    by Ramona on Fri, 09/21/2012 - 2:42pm

    I love quick recipes and this sounds good.  I would use milk instead of cream, I think, but I might dream about cream!  A roux would work, as well, and I love AA's idea of using cream cheese.  I'll have to try that.

    Thanks, Trkng.  Keep 'em coming!


    by Ramona on Fri, 09/21/2012 - 7:57am

    Your welcome.  This is a very light sauce and the egg noodles absorb the sauce.  There is no need for a thickener, because the cheese thickens it up just enough.  I usually use milk because that is what I have on hand.  If you add a vegetable, it needs to be precooked because the sauce is almost brought to boiling.  You don't want to bring it too high of temperature or the cream or milk will curdle.

    I have more to come.


    by trkingmomoe on Fri, 09/21/2012 - 2:29pm

    I already commented about this at your blog.

    I just found myself using your recipe but playing a variation with what I had left in the fridge.

    I used two slices of bacon (why I had bacon must have been based on some sale) and one polish sausage.

    I had some whipped cream (again, why?) and Mozzarella.

    I also had long spaghetti (whole wheat, I also keep rice somewhere)...

    Anyway, it was delicious if not a little over the fat limit which ham would have cured--pun intended.

    Of course I played with spices, etc....

    It was pretty good!

    One thing, I used this little pan and I am still soaking out cheese at the bottom of the pan.

    the end

     


    by Richard Day on Fri, 09/21/2012 - 3:16pm

    Thanks for letting me know how it turned out. It is just a basic sauce you can use with many foods.

    by trkingmomoe on Sat, 09/22/2012 - 8:35pm