Split Pea with Ham Soup

Every Christmas my husband and children insist that we get a "Honeybaked Ham" for Christmas dinner. Not a honey baked ham from the grocery store or Costco but a "Honeybaked Ham" from the Honeybaked Ham store. I myself am not particularly fond of ham for dinner. Not that I don't like ham, I do, but it's more a breakfast or lunch thing for me. A ham dinner just really doesn't excite me. I'll admit, a "Honeybaked Ham" is pretty good and far superior to the grocery store honey baked hams. I know this from my own taste buds and the near mutiny I had on my hands one year when I tried to get by on the cheap with a grocery store ham. I get why they want it, it's good, but it's still hard for me to fork over the $55 plus dollars for the designer brand ham. What softens the blow is that we get 3-4 dinners out of one ham. My family is happy and if you do the math: $55.00 ÷ 4 dinners = $13.75 per dinner ÷ 4 people = $3.45 per serving. No too bad. But the real reason I give into the "Honeybaked Ham" is the ham bone and the glorious pot of split pea soup that comes of it. Now I'm lukewarm on a ham dinner but I LOVE LOVE LOVE split pea soup. Seriously, there aren't enough capital letters or repeated words to express how much I LOVE LOVE LOVE split pea soup. And nothing compares to good homemade split pea soup, with a ham bone from a "Honeybaked Ham". You'll have to see for yourself. . .

(OK, seriously, don't go and spend $55 on a Honeybaked Ham just for the bone. You can usually find bone in hams at the grocery and sometimes smoked ham hocks. Either will do for this recipe.)

Monte Cristo Sandwich

Last time we went to Disneyland we were robbed. Not literally, but robbed of our favorite sandwich, The Monte Cristo. We always get them at the Blue Bayou Restaurant. You know, the restaurant where it looks like you're sitting outside at night, even though you're inside in the middle of the day. The one that over looks the boats as they head off for Pirates of the Caribbean. We must, I say MUST, eat there every time we visit the Magic Kingdom. It's just tradition. It's just how it is. On our last trip I thought I'd be super duper clever and make reservations way ahead. So we wouldn't have to wait, so we could get a seat right on the water. On our last day in the park, we arrived 15 minutes before our 6:00pm reservation, requested a seat on the water and were seated at a lovely waterside table 20 minutes later. I was pretty pleased with myself. Then we opened our menus to discover, in horror, that the Monte Cristo isn't served at dinner. WHAT!!! Say it ain't so. I begged, pleaded and all but got on my hands and knees trying to convince the waiter to order the coveted sandwich for us but it just wasn't to be. We would leave the park without our beloved Monte Cristo. (We actually had a very nice dinner once we got over the absence of the sandwich.)

Still feeling robbed weeks later, I decided to try and make them at home. Traditionally, Monte Cristo sandwiches are deep fried. If you've read my post on Funnel Cakes, then you know how I feel about deep frying at home. YUCK, too messy. It's best left to professional chefs in professional kitchens. There must be another way. So I Googled, and Pinterested and found several grilled Monte Cristo sandwich recipes. I read through them, got the general idea, tweaked the proportions, meats and cheeses for our tastes and came up with the following recipe. I'm using our George Foreman grill which makes the whole process super easy but you can use a grill pan or skillet if you prefer. Check it out. . .