2009 February 07 | dinner with Julie

Archive for February 7th, 2009

Green Eggs and Ham

Oops.

I blew right past Free Stuff Fridays, didn’t I? The past weeks have been a bit of a calendular blur – we’re shooting straight through the weekends too, so I’ve got the double whammy of no time management skills paired with no sense of what day it is. So instead of coming up with free loot for you last night post-shoot, I went shopping and cleaned the house in preparation for the entire crew to come shoot here today. Can I take a FSF hiatus until things resume to relatively normal on Friday the 20th? I’ll come up with something good then, I promise. I still have a backlog of the past weeks’ free stuff to ship out. Hopefully these yummy little numbers will make it up to you.

The best part of my days this week have been reading W stories at night – practically the only time I see him. Green Eggs and Ham has been one of his favourites for at least a third of his life, and we picked up the computer game version (really all rhyming and reading and stuff, not little Dr Seuss characters ganging up to take each other out) when we bought the Mac, which required about ten minutes for him to become completely adept at.

So yes, I made this recipe up in order to use the name. But it has turned into one of my favourite things – I adore deviled eggs (really, who doesn’t?) – imagine them plumped up with salty ham and earthy spinach, but actually lighter on account of more stuff and fewer eggs yolks and mayo. If you are at all a fan of all things eggy or hammy or cheesy, TRY THESE. Seriously.

Also – they aren’t at all finicky. You don’t need to wait for a party or feel the need to pipe the filling decoratively into the egg white halves – you likely couldn’t, anyway. And forgo the old-school paprika sprinkle – just go with black pepper.

Green Eggs & Ham

6 large eggs
1 tsp. canola oil
2 slices deli ham, chopped (or a bit of leftover roast ham)
A handful of fresh spinach or chard, chopped
1 Tbsp. light mayonnaise
2 Tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Place the eggs in a medium saucepan. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Cover, remove from heat and let stand 15 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water until cool. Peel and slice in half lengthwise. Remove yolks and set 3 aside for another use, or feed them to your dog.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a saucepan set over medium heat and sauté the ham for a minute. Add the spinach and cook for another minute, until wilted.

In a medium bowl mash the 3 yolks with the mayonnaise, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper until smooth. Add the spinach mixture and stir until well blended.

Stuff egg white halves with filling and serve immediately. Makes 12.

Per egg half: 55 calories, 3.7 g total fat (1.1 g saturated fat, 1.5 g monounsaturated fat, 0.6 g polyunsaturated fat), 4.5 g protein, 0.8 g carbohydrate, 111 mg cholesterol, 0.1 g fiber. 61% calories from fat