Last night I had a ham roast defrosted, but I didn’t know what to do with it. I decided to cook it osso bucco style.

Normally, osso bucco is made with a veal shank or lamb an it is a certain cut that contains a bone with all the good for you bone marrow. My ham roast had a bone in it, so I figured why not? Let’s give it a shot.

To make it Paleo I left off the flour that some will put on the meat to sear it. I did find a Paleo version of the recipe online at Bi-Polar Paleo, so I pretty much followed it.

One thing I didn’t have was dry white wine, so that was left out. I also only used one onion because onion does bad things to Hubs. Actually, it’s more bad for me, so I tend to chop up onion real small and cook it way down.

Now this recipe called for a slow cooker, but I didn’t have time for that. I also wasn’t using the tougher cut of meat that osso bucco usually uses so I just got everything ready on the stovetop than put my ham with veggie mixture and tomatoey sauce in the oven. Because it wasn’t getting slow cooked, I left out the beef stock because I had plenty of liquid with the tomatoes.

Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of the result, but I thought it was pretty tasty. The tomato, carrot, celery mixture was actually my favorite part, and I might just make that for a side dish (actually, I had plenty of it left over so it’s stored away in my fridge for lunch today). The ham had good flavor and it was cooked well.

For my side, I decided to cook some collard greens. First, I needed something to cook it in…bacon fat!

That, my friends, is some serious bacon. The red plate in the background is a normal, adult-sized plate (not some small dessert plate). Have I told you how much I love the Farmer’s Market? One reason…I get bacon like this.

Collards cooked in the fat from just one slice of this thick bacon, plus some red pepper flakes, are quite tasty. Of course, I didn’t waste the bacon and crumbled it on top.

So while my meal wasn’t crazy fancy or some work of art, it was different for us. A couple weeks ago I made a Thai Curry Chicken Soup with spinach and carrots and later this week I plan on making a butternut squash, carrot soup with bacon (of course).

Time to go down some bone broth for my mid-morning snack.

Everything on here was made by me except for the pretzels. Those were from a tin we got, but I thought I’d throw them on here anyway. My main goal was not to put together the most chocolatey, delicious-o dessert platter ever, but it was to clean out all the goodies that are at my house.

There are magic cookie bars, chocolate cookies, oatmeal scotches, pretzel turtles,and the aforementioned, chocolate-covered pretzels. You do not see the chocolate chip cookies on there because they are my Hubs favorites, and he would not be happy if I gave them away.

So farewell, my sweet friends. I hope you all get eaten so I don’t have to bring you back.

I had to do some searching online for a recipe, and I came across the blog A Year of Slow Cooking. There was a post for a slow cooker french toast, and it looked perfect to take to work. I was a little leary about bread and liquid cooking all night, but it turned out really well. The best part is that it was super easy, and I didn’t have to slave over a hot stove.

French Toast in a Slow Cooker
Ingredients:
1.5 loaves of french bread
1 dozen eggs
2 t vanilla
4 cups of milk (I used 1 cup of heavy cream and 3 cups of regular 1% milk)
1/4 t salt
2 t cinnamon
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup walnuts, or other desired nuts (optional)
Syrup

I must warn you that I don’t actually measure things very well, so those measurements are what the recipe says. Unless, I’m doing actual baking like cookies or cake, I tend to just add however much I think works. So the cinnamon, brown sugar and vanilla were just dumped in.

Back to the recipe…I greased the sides of the crock pot with Pam, but you could use butter or Crisco. Then, I sliced the bread and layered it all in the crock pot. It actually was a lot of bread and barely fit in there. Next I whisked the remainder of the ingredients, except the syrup, together and poured it on top. I didn’t use the walnuts because there are some co-workers with nut allergies. I turned the crockpot on low for 6 hours and went to bed.

When I woke up the entire house smelled like french toast. I packed up the crock pot and the syrup and headed to work. The bread was almost overflowing the crock pot last night, but it shrank down to about half the size and was a lovely golden brown color. The edges that had sat up against the side were a little crunchy and the middle was soft. After helping me get everything up to the office, I had one of the carpoolers be my taste tester. After pouring some syrup, he dug in. I think it passed.

Sorry, I didn’t take pictures of the final product.

Here are the buns and patties pre-construction.

So what are these? Are they a burger or a dessert?

Hmmm…they look like a burger.

But they look sweet like they are made with lots of sugar.

A platter full were taken to work.

After just two minutes there were only a few left. So they must have been good.