I was passing by a row of hams at the grocery store and suddenly had a serious craving. “Cure 81″ ham is one of the things my mother made as I grew up, that I really loved. I believe that was always an Easter treat. Trouble is, a ham is a lot of meat–even if you make a nice dinner of one, you’re often going to end up with some leftovers.

So…to justify the decadent gluttony of a whole ham, I hatched a diabolical plan to justify the means. Basically, I decided on the leftovers first–ham sandwiches. From there, I worked out the details to spruce the simple sandwich up a bit. This isn’t a kid’s ham sandwich–too many flavors and textures for your average kid–so I’m calling it a grown-up sandwich.

You could opt out on any element I suggest here. But whatever you omit, the closer you come to just any old ham sandwich. It’s kind of a win-win scenario, actually. You’ll have something tasty either way!

Continue on to the recipe

Yet another pork recipe ala Dan Bauer. I just love working with pork, it cooks up deliciously every time, and, especially with tenderloin, fairly quickly as well. The black beans are what I chose to “make this a meal”, but in reality, I had several sides as this fed me several days of a week.

I do this frequently–cook on a Sunday, then enjoy my spoils for several days the following week since a whole pork loin is way to much to tackle in one sitting (for a solitary single guy!). I am fond of citrus and acid, so I really think the beans were a nice compliment to the dish and I can say very confidently that you could serve this up very elegantly, in a way which belies the utterly simple nature of creating the dish, for yourself and guests. But, either method–cooking and saving or all-at-once–will work for you just fine. Brown rice is a good suggestion if you’re trying to round this meal out a little further.

1 pork tenderloin
Rosemary
Thyme
3 tbsp minced garlic
1 white onion, sliced

Preheat oven to 350. Salt and pepper the tenderloin in a shallow pan, then sprinkle with garlic, rosemary and thyme. Cooking time is about 45 minutes to 160 degree meat temperature. Work on your tarragon and black beans (below) in the interim. At about 25 minutes layer your onion slices over the meat, so that they retain a little crunch when fully cooked.

Tarragon Sauce
1 tbsp Tarragon
Cayenne Pepper (pinch)
1/2 cup Heavy Cream
14 oz Chicken Broth
1 tbsp lemon juice
Salt to taste

Combine these ingredients and whisk over low heat frequently for at least 20 minutes. You could really opt to start this cooking before the pork to really achieve your best results due to the further reduction of the sauce. Please realize that butter is only going to make this sauce more delicious, and more cream will, too. You will have to experiment with your doses for best results, but even with the heavy cream this is still relatively healthy as-is, since you just aren’t getting more than a teaspoon or two on a reasonable (3-4 slices) portion. If you’re eating a lot more than that, the sauce really isn’t to blame! You could omit the cream for health, but you’re going to have more of a broth than sauce at that point, so do as you will.

Black Beans
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
3 green onions, diced
salt
pepper
lemon juice

Nothing difficult here. Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and toss to coat. You just need enough lemon juice to coat, not to make a bath.

I’ll try to get a picture of this sometime. I had vowed to get more pics of the things I’m making, but my camera breaking foiled that intention for now…