Easter Ham Leftover Pasta

For those of you who might still be in your Easter food coma, I bring to you a quick recap of the last post: while I am not huge fan of ham, my husband Travis is. So this year for Easter, I made a quarter ham that even I thought was pretty tasty, thanks to my rosemary honey glaze. I also made a few other dishes so there was definitely no way Travis was going to pull a Joey-on-Thanksgiving-eatingthewholeturkeyinSantapants-stunt (anyone else a Friends fan?) so we had quite a bit of leftover ham.

In the end, I ended up putting chicken in my dish, but a taste test bite of the pasta with ham proved quite good! What I loved most, was that I was able to make this in truly less than 20 minutes, which gave me more time to snuggle on the couch with my husband on one side chomping down his dinner and my very sweet dog Otis on the other begging me for a bite. Add in an episode of Sopranos and we had ourselves a wonderfully relaxing little evening.

I've included in the recipe list below the yummies that I included in the skillet, but honest to goodness you could totally add whatever your heart desires.

Easter Ham Leftover Pasta

a Butter Than Toast original

1/2 pound dried short cut pasta (I used rigatoni)

1.5 cups broccoli florets, trimmed of excess stems

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 tablespoon butter

1/2 onion, yellow or white, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup leftover Easter ham, fat trimmed and diced

2 tablespoons AP flour

1/2 cup chicken broth

2 tablespoons low fat milk mixed with 2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 cup spinach, chopped

1/4 cup parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Boil some salted water and toss in the pasta, stirring occasionally. Blanch the broccoli with the pasta during the last couple minutes of cooking. While the pasta cooks, saute the onion in the olive oil until tender, about 4 minutes. Add garlic right at the end and turn the heat down so the garlic does not burn. Add ham, stir through to reheat and slightly brown. Add butter to skillet, and once it's melted add the flour, stirring to coat everything. Once flour starts to cook slightly but not burn, add the chicken broth, stirring to mix everything together. Once the chicken broth starts to thicken slightly, add the milk/cornstarch mixture to thicken it further. If things seem to dry for your taste, add more chicken broth a tablespoon at a time until you're happy with it. Once the consistency is right, add the cooked and drained pasta, broccoli, spinach and black pepper, taste before adding any salt. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese, dish up and enjoy!