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Cornmeal Scrapple and Perspective
Ham Loaf with a Cheese Crust
Picture this. You are cleaning up from your Sunday dinner. Your family has devoured the Skillet Potatoes Au Gratin. They have eaten all of the Cooked Cranberry Salad. Their bellies are now full of Mama’s Apple Pecan Pie. The Bread and Butter Pickles are back in the fridge, but what are you going to do with all that leftover ham?
With everyone already planning for Thanksgiving (and the holiday that comes after that that I don’t want to mention because it’s just too soon), now is a good time to start working on menu planning and leftover planning. So let’s sharpen up our home economist skills and put those leftovers to work for you.
I know, I know. There are ham sandwiches that can be made, both hot and cold. Everyone has been yammering for scalloped potatoes. (Not at my house, but my mom did make some especially for a classmate of mine once in high school. She is amazing about things like that). The bone can be used for bean soup or thrown into greens or made into red beans and rice (my kids’ favorite option). At some point, however, you always end up with these little pieces that no one wants to eat because they are the wrong shape or size, they are too thick or thin. They languish there in your fridge and cry out to you when you open the door. You know that you should do something with them, but you aren’t sure of what. I have (or rather my great-grandma and other brilliant home economists have) a solution for you. Ham loaf in a cheese crust.
Just say those words aloud. It’s ok to alternately smile and gag. It’s not something we are used to seeing in our menu rotation. There are reasons for why this recipe has fallen out of fashion. My kids would argue that taste was one of those reasons, but I think they were having an exceptionally picky day. Side note: I mentioned to Nick what I was writing about and he said “Oh, right, that weird stuff.”
When I looked at the title of the recipe, the images of what this recipe would be was something more like a meatloaf with a thick coating of cheese and breadcrumbs surrounding it, so that every slice looked like a drawing of rock layers from elementary school science class. As I read through the recipe I realized how wrong I had it. This was going to be a pie. A pink pie with an orange crust. A study in contrasting colors and textures. I’m never sure about the texture of ground ham.
When this recipe was originally published, there were not the variety of cheese cracker options that are available today. I’m not sure if this qualifies as progress. I stuck with Cheez-Its original flavor. Getting out the blender or food processor seemed like dishes I didn’t feel like doing so crushed the crackers with a combination of the potato masher and my hands. It makes lovely pictures, but a crumbly crust.
All in all, this was not a bad recipe. A little on the salty side, but it’s ham and cheese crackers, so you’d expect as much.
The Recipe:
Peach Cottage Cheese Loaf
Last night as I was driving home in the rain, Casey Kasem was counting down the top 40 hits from 1976. I can sing along with most of Saturday at the 70’s, but there are songs that baffle me as to how they even got popular. As I was pulling up to the house, Captain and Tennille started crooning “Muskrat Love“. How did that become a hit? It’s worse than “Angie Baby“. I guess some things just make sense at the time, even if they lose relevance as the years go past. Kind of like Peach Cottage Cheese Loaf.
Now you have to understand, there is only one person at my house that likes cottage cheese, so we were already prejudiced against this recipe. Then we are going to add in some mayonnaise and gelatin…How could this not be a winning dish?
I had to look up what “creamed cottage cheese” was. Basically, it’s the cottage cheese anyone can get at any grocery store in the US. It has liquid in it as opposed to being dry. It’s so common, they don’t label it that way and you’d probably have to go to a specialty store to find non-creamed cottage cheese. (Or make it yourself).
This recipe did not “loaf”. I don’t know where I went wrong in following the directions, but the gelatin did not hold this recipe into a discernible loaf. I managed to get it to hold together long enough for pictures, but the neat slices I imagined didn’t happen. The whole thing got scraped into a bowl and served that way.
Everyone was required to take a taste of the vomit-like concoction because that’s the way we do things. We try ingredients we don’t like in a variety of ways in case there is a way that we do like that ingredient. It worked with beets, mustard, brussel sprouts, and other things. The rule at our house is if you say you don’t like it without trying it, you need to eat twice as much as I would normally expect you to eat to try something. We aren’t talking huge amounts here. It’s not like I make anyone eat a double full portion, it’s more like 2 teaspoons full instead of 1 teaspoon full. The kids prefer to have control over their serving sizes, so they agree to the terms. It works for us and lessens the amount of whining at the table.
As we expected before we started the meal. No one really cared for this marvelous creation. Even the person that “liked” it couldn’t really eat more than a couple of servings over the course of a week.
This recipe, like “Muskrat Love”, should probably stay back in the time period from whence it came. It’s sometimes better to just leave things in the past. But if you insist on doing things your own way, maybe you should try the pineapple variation.