Grandma's Ham Salad from author @CleoCoyle (A Great Use for #Easter #Leftovers)

Ham Salad made fresh is absolutely delicious. Yes, it's a little old-fashioned, but sometimes the old recipes are the best, especially with new twists.

My husband and I like to eat our ham salad smeared on water crackers or slices of crusty baguette and topped with oil-cured olives and a slice of fresh jalapeño. Frankly, it's good enough to feed guests with a glass of wine or champagne. Just call it "American Pâté" and serve it with a little smile.

Cleo Coyle writes two
bestselling mystery

 series with her husband.
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☕ A Recipe Note from Cleo

A few years ago, Marc, my husband (and partner in crime writing), said he wanted to make ham salad with our leftover holiday ham the way his grandmother did.

"Ee-gad, no!" I said, remembering Deviled Ham in a can (and not fondly).

"Oh, honey," he said, "you never had it made fresh for you like my grandmother did for me. Really, you don’t know what you’re missing."

Marc was right. Ham salad made fresh is an outstanding treat for sandwiches, but our favorite way to enjoy it is smeared on a slice of crusty baguette or as a topping for crackers, crowned with oil-cured olives and slices of jalapeño or hot banana peppers.

Below is the recipe we now use every year. It's our favorite. Tweak it to your own taste and eat with joy! ~ Cleo

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Grandma's Ham Salad
with love from Cleo Coyle

Ingredients:

3 cups diced ham, fully cooked
1 hard-boiled egg, chopped
2 heaping teaspoons dill relish (or sweet)
1 Tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
1 green onion, chopped (or 1 T. chopped shallots)
1 heaping teaspoon Dijon mustard (or yellow if you like)
1/2 cup mayonnaise

(optional) Toppings: sliced olives, jalapeño, bell or banana peppers

Directions: Grind your ham slices with a blender, food processor, meat grinder, or (if you have strong hands, use the method of Marc's grandmother) a pastry blender!

Add remaining ingredients. Mix well. Chill and serve on your favorite crackers or slices of crusty baguette. We enjoyed topping ours with slices of jalapeño or hot "banana peppers" and oil-cured olives.

Eat (and read) with joy!

~ Cleo Coyle

New York Times bestselling author

of The Coffeehouse Mysteries and

Haunted Bookshop Mysteries

Cleo (Alice) with her husband Marc

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Sticky Ham Sandwiches #Recipe @PegCochran

Sliders are so easy to make and they're always a hit.  They're perfect to bring to a potluck or a family gathering.  I made these for our get-together last night where everyone brings a dish to share.  I saw the recipe on the Today show--it's Carson Daly's wife's recipe.  I've made ham and cheese sliders before, but the glaze on these takes them to a whole new level!

Glaze:

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 TBL dry mustard
1 TBL Worcestershire sauce
2 TBL brown sugar
1 TBL poppy seeds

Sliders:

1 package Hawaiian sweet buns
1  lb. ham
1 lb. Swiss cheese or cheese of your choice

Put all ingredients for the glaze in a pan and simmer gently until butter melts and ingredients are incorporated.

Assemble sliders:

Slice buns in half and separate the top from the bottom.  (I found them easier to slice if I popped them into the freezer for about 10 minutes first.)  Place bottom half of buns in a pan that will hold them relatively snuggly.

Layer ham on top.  You may or may not need the entire pound of ham.

Layer cheese slices over ham.

Replace tops of buns and pour glaze over the top smoothing it out with a spatula so all the buns are well covered.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake in a 325 degree oven for 10 minutes.  Uncover and bake for another 10 minutes.

They can be a little tricky to cut because of all that delicious melted cheese so I separated them before serving so guests didn't have to wrestle with them.  They were gone almost before the gathering got underway!
 

OUT NOW!

Amazon review: "Murder, She Encountered by Peg Cochran is a terrific quasi-cozy mystery and a terrific read for anyone who likes WWII era fiction. One of the outstanding things about this book, which doesn't always happen, is that the author kept us solidly in 1939 New York between speech patterns, history happening in real time, and social history as it was happening....This was an excellent mystery and museum piece, both. I highly recommend it."

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New York City, 1939. A rising star at the Daily Trumpet, Elizabeth “Biz” Adams has been sent to the World’s Fair—billed as the “World of Tomorrow,” a look toward a brighter future even as the drumbeats of war grow louder—to cover a robbery. What she stumbles upon instead is a dead woman, dumped into the Aquacade’s pool with a nylon stocking wrapped around her neck.

Elizabeth snaps a photo as the police arrest Joey Dorman, a gentle young hot dog vendor who made no secret of his obsession with the murder victim. Even though she’s thrilled that her photo makes the front page, the fear and confusion evident on Joey’s face are haunting. So Elizabeth vows to prove his innocence—or his guilt—with her partner at the Daily Trumpet, Ralph Kaminsky. Meanwhile, her romance with Detective Sal Marino is heating up, and Elizabeth is more determined than ever to follow her heart.

But when Kaminsky’s efforts to expose the real killer land him in the hospital, Elizabeth is forced to continue the investigation on her own. And as she tries to narrow down the long list of suspects, she discovers a dark secret running through the Fair—a secret some would kill to protect.

IRISH WHITE ONION SOUP

From not one but two recipes in Clare Conner’s Irish Cooking

Sometimes you feel like putting together a meal that is quick to make, doesn’t take a lot of obscure ingredients that you don’t have, and just plain tastes good. I found a couple of recipes in the cookbook Irish Cooking, but neither one was quite right—so what the heck, I went ahead and combined them.

One was Leek and Potato Soup, the other was White Onion Soup, and not surprisingly the recipes overlap. (Funny--when I see "onion soup" I always think of the French version, which is translucent. This one isn't--it's thicker and creamy.) I also fancied up the result by adding coarsely chopped ham, for a bit of color and more flavor. I will admit the idea was inspired by some leeks that I picked up at the market last week: they were the size of baseball bats (well, almost).

Ingredients:

Yes, that big thing in the front left is
six inches of a single leek--they were big!

2 oz salted butter

1 lb white onions, thinly sliced

1 leek (white part only), thinly sliced

(all right I confess: I used half onions and half leeks)

1 oz. plain flour

1/2 pound of potatoes, peeled

6 cups chicken stock

Salt and white pepper

1/2 cup heavy cream

Oil for frying

1/2 pound cooked ham steak, cut into cubes

A few chives for garnish if you have any

Instructions:

Slice your vegetables. Melt the butter in a large saucepan, then add the onions and leeks and cook slowly over low heat (do not let them brown) for about 30 minutes.

Sprinkle the flour over the leek-onion mixture and blend thoroughly. Gradually add the chicken stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and let simmer for about 15 minutes (until the liquid thickens some).

Saute the ham pieces in oil in a small skillet.

Taste the soup and add salt and pepper if you want. Puree the liquid (you can use a food processor, but I happened to have an immersion blender that I bought at a yard sale, and it worked well).

Return to the heat. When the soup is hot, spoon or pour into individual bowls, then sprinkle with the ham bits and chives.

(BTW, this can also be served cold in summer. You might want to thin it with more stock in that case.)

Coming in July! Killer in the Carriage House.

Plus there will be a new Museum Mystery next month, once my patient editor and I decide on a name. So far I'm torn between Bring Out Your Dead, What Lies Beneath, and The Lost Letter. And would you have a problem with more than one skeleton on the cover?

www.sheilaconnolly.com