Pizza Toppings - Love 'em or Leave 'em?

There are so many different toppings that can be put on pizza and they can vary from country to country. Here in the USA, the toppings most often listed on a menu are: pepperoni, ham, ground beef, bacon, sausage, onions, green peppers, roasted peppers, black olives, mushrooms, pineapple, and extra cheese. Recently some others began to appear as specialty items: spinach, broccoli, grilled zucchini or eggplant, chicken, hot sauce, BBQ sauce, Ranch dressing, Alfredo sauce, even macaroni and cheese. 

Now, personally, my favorite toppings are (not all together): ham, sausage, bacon, onions, green peppers, black olives and pineapple. Extra cheese is always welcome, too. I've eaten slices of bacon ranch chicken pizza and found that I really liked it, although I won't ever order it as a whole pizza. I've ordered spinach and ham or spinach with black olives and enjoyed it, too. Baby spinach leaves aren't bitter like canned spinach is. I've had the eggplant as a topping and loved it. Ham and pineapple with black olives, bacon and hot sauce is another one I love. 

Toppings I flat out refuse to have on my pizza are: mushrooms, anchovies, ground beef, sliced sausages (I want the uncased sausage, not the kind that comes in links). I would eat the pizza in the photo except I'd take off the mushrooms. I really and truly dislike mushrooms. I'm not a big fan of pepperoni, either, but I will eat it at times if it's well cooked and crispy. Otherwise, I take that off, too.

So, what pizza toppings do you like? What ones won't you eat? What toppings do you like that I haven't listed? Are they popular in your country or just to you?

Originally posted at: Bubblews.com

Ham and Eggs (and Pintos, too)

Top to bottom: pan fried ham, scrambled eggs, pinto beans.

Holy cow, I've enjoyed my meals since cooking that ham and those beans. But, I think my favorite of all was when I used the ham for breakfast and fried it nice and brown along with eggs nicely scrambled and some of those wonderful pinto beans.

I know this photo isn't the prettiest. Our plates aren't made to display our meals and there was more juice in the beans than I'd meant there to be, so what you see surrounding the eggs is that juice that ran across the plate. (My daughter bought all of our plates at Dollar Tree because she liked the colors and how sturdy they are. My set of white plates is unused in storage.)

Well, I enjoyed this breakfast so much that I just had it again for supper (or dinner, depending on where you live). The slices of ham were nicely crisped, the eggs had picked up the ham drippings (this time I cooked them AFTER the ham) and the beans were as good as they were the first time. I didn't even have bread or a tortilla with this. It was satisfying just as it was.

I wish my daughter would eat ham (not counting deli ham which she will eat). I could have it more often. But, by the same token, I can have more of it since she doesn't like it. 

Now, I'm wondering, and maybe someone reading this could advise me, about making ham gravy. I'm not talking about redeye gravy or the milk gravy you make from the ham drippings (love it!!), but ham gravy in the sense of sausage gravy or dried beef gravy. These slices are too thick to really do it justice like dried beef could, but there's so much flavor in this ham, I was wondering if I could grind some of the ham up (one time through the grinder) and then sizzle the ground ham until it begins to get color before adding my fat, flour and milk. Do you think that would work? I'm really craving a milk gravy with that kind of salty kick that sausage or dried beef would give it. I'll take any suggestions!

Oh, and even after eating beans for four meals, I still had enough left to freeze two pints of them. Well, they're not frozen yet, but they will be once the containers cool off. Good for making chili or burritos.

Spiral Ham and Pinto Beans

Mine are like these, but I won't add seasoning until they're cooked.

My daughter was given a spiral ham for Christmas by her new employer. We never baked it because she's not fan of ham. I decided I wanted ham yesterday. I REALLY wanted ham. I could just taste it I wanted it so bad. But, I wanted to do it in my crock pot instead of in the oven. I found instructions online on how long to cook the ham, but I ran into a problem. The ham was too big for the crock pot. Apparently, the one used in the instruction was oval. Mine is round. 

So, I took the crock out since it already had the ham in it and stuck it in the 250 oven and baked it for just over 50 minutes per the regular instructions. It was perfect! It came with a brown sugar glaze, but I didn't put that on it. Instead I made it as a side sauce and used it to dip my ham in.

Today, I cut off the remaining slices of ham from the bone and froze the large end piece of ham. The slices are packed separately and are in the fridge for breakfast, lunch and dinner options (for a day or two - after that, I'll freeze them, too.)

Then this evening, I took the crock that had the ham in it and added a pound of pinto beans to it along with sufficient water for cooking. I am going to have myself some pinto beans flavored with the ham drippings from that Christmas ham. I am looking forward to it.

Right now, I'm thinking of breakfast - scrambled eggs, crisped up slices of ham and a side of beans with a flour tortilla. I don't have any potatoes, but that's OK. I'm better off with the lower carb option. Still, I'm looking forward to my breakfast in the morning. 

H is for Holiday Meals

Yesterday was Easter for many of us. Passover began Friday evening through this coming Saturday for others. In the midst of all this are the celebratory (or memorial) meals that have become traditions throughout the world.


Although the Spring holidays don't have the same food impact as the Fall and Winter holidays do, food still plays a prominent role. Whether it is Easter ham, Seder brisket, Holy Thursday pancakes or fish on Fridays during Lent, food is center stage during these holidays. 


I had the opportunity to enjoy a ham dinner yesterday. I love ham, but my daughter doesn't, so I don't get to eat it much at home. I did bring her a platter, but it was filled with everything but ham. I can understand why some people don't eat ham (or pork), but I can't imagine how someone doesn't like ham after they've had the chance to try it. Unfortunately, I have no leftovers to munch on, so I'll be making myself a hamburger once I post this. 

Lots of Broth on Hand - Low on Ideas

My gentleman friend cooked chicken curry for the two of us last week. He soaked the chicken in salt water before adding them to the crockpot to make them more tender and flavorful. Then he realized that there wouldn't be enough leftovers for his brother, so he hurriedly cooked up some more chicken in a pot of salted water in order to add the already cooked chicken to the curry sauce in the crock. He was about to pour all that chicken stock down the drain when I stopped him. I asked him to put it in some containers for me to bring home. Since it wasn't cool yet when I left, he didn't bring it until the next day. I repackaged it into my own containers and froze it for future use. I have about a quart and a cup of chicken broth frozen.


Yesterday, I re-cooked the bone portion of my ham with frozen green beans in water. Because my daughter doesn't like potatoes cooked in with the ham, I left them out. There was plenty of ham stock in the pot, so when I was putting everything away, I poured off the stock into containers and froze them along with the green beans we didn't eat. I have around 30 oz. of ham stock now in the freezer. 


I'm going to try to make some ham salad with some of the ham with my meat grinder. Maybe even some ham croquettes. But, I've also never used ham stock to make anything before. This will all be new to me.


I'm thinking of making some bean soup with the pinto beans I also cooked this week (I have no idea what has got into me with all this cooking - maybe Mom's paying a visit this week?) I think I'll add some carrots and potatoes, maybe some celery and onion. I love pintos and so does my daughter, but neither of us has ever had pinto bean soup before. How different can it be from regular bean soup? I used some of the ham to flavor the beans near the end of their cooking, so soup seems to be a natural extension of that. By the way, the beans are frozen in containers, too.


I would love to have some more ideas on using the ham stock (other than cabbage - that is NOT a vegetable of choice here). If you leave me comments and have an idea, I'd really appreciate it.