Many Meals, One Ham
In my quest for easy meals, I bought a ham. I paid more than I like to pay for ham. Normally, I would wait until it went on sale for 99 cents a pound but I paid full price of $1.49. So for a nine pound ham, I paid roughly $14.00. But we don’t eat ham like other folks. Let me show you how many meals are in a ham.
Day One
We had baked ham with butternut squash from our garden and Brussels sprouts.
Day Two
I cooked a ham and cheese omelet for breakfast. Then, my daughter cut all the nice meat off the bone and diced it. With that diced meat we created six casseroles–one for supper and five for the freezer. And I still had meat left over. Are you counting? We’re up to eight meals so far.
Day Three
I had another ham and cheese omelet for breakfast. My daughter made ham and cheese tostados for lunch and I made some ham salad. I put the bone and all the scraps on to boil. We’re up to 11 meals, now.
Day Four
I canned seven quarts of ham broth with meat scraps in the bottom of the jars. Those quarts of broth will be used to make seven more meals. My dogs got the bone. 
How Many Meals are in a Ham?
Did you lose count? I didn’t. That $14 ham provided 18 meals for a family of six! You can’t beat that with a stick.
And how will I get a meal out of a jar of ham broth? Stay tuned. That is for another post.
Blessings,
This post is linked to the Homestead Barn Hop, Better Mom Mondays, Mix It Up Monday, Homemade Mondays, Hearth and Soul, Teach Me Tuesdays, Titus 2sday, Backyard Farming Connection, Domestically Divine, Tempt My Tummy, Thrifty Thursday, the HomeAcre Hop, Natural Living, and On the Menu Monday.
I thought I was doing pretty good with our hams and turkeys, but you’ve way out-done me, Carol!
I’ve frozen the broth, but I like your idea of canning so much better — especially since I usually have to try and thaw it out in the microwave, because I forgot to get it out early enough. :}
No contest here, KathyM. Anything extra we can do counts. And I can everything I can just for the reason you say–I forget to take stuff out of the freezer. And I don’t have a microwave to thaw out in.
The dog says, “Let’s do this again!”
I don’t know that I have ever got that many meals from a ham before and I know I haven’t ever counted but I do try to make it stretch as well. The general plan is quite similar to that. It is fun to see how far it can stretch. I did recently find Ham for 99 cents a lb. plus $3 off per ham and so I stocked up. Now I am ready to make a lot of ham meals.
A meal that we like that you didn’t mention would be homemade pizza with ham on it.
This is so great! Thanks so much for sharing! Have a great day!
Could you please share your casserole recipes?
Sure thing, Meredith. Look for that next week.
Thank you! I look forward to it!
Wow. I’m wildly impressed with how many meals you’ve made with that one ham. I’ll have to add that to my grocery list for February.
That’s great, Joy. Next week I’ll put up some recipes/ideas of what to do with it.
How much diced ham did you use in each recipe? That would have an awful lot to do with how many meal a person got out of a ham. Sounds like a good idea though. I’d like to try it!
I didn’t measure, Cindy, but I’m guessing about two cups, depending on the size of the casserole.
I loved this post. If you made that many meals with your large family, just think how many I get out of it with just the 2 of us. I have never made broth from a ham bone before but I plan to try it. Something my daughter in law showed me was to make Hambone Soup. It is vegetable soup made with a hambone instead of beef. I love to make that as well. When we have dinners at church and ham is served I always get the ham bones. Lots of broth coming my way! Love being frugal!
I mostly use the ham broth for cooking beans, Willie. Can’t imagine beans without ham.
Do you make ham broth the same way that you would do chicken? I have never considered using ham broth!!!
Yes, Star! And I pick all the bits of meat off the bone and add it to the bottom of the jars. Just last night we had bean soup and I used a jar of ham broth and a quart of water for the base. I’m working on a recipe post. Probably, next week.
Oh I am so impressed by this I thought I was the only one that stretches meat like this. Great ideas.
Visiting from Valentine Blog Hop. B
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