Add water, strain and then dry it out? It might remove some of the salt.

Might work, but a lot of the spices are powdered. Besides, when I work 8+ hours a day cleaning, I don't have the patience.

Strain with a coffee filter? Maybe you'd not have to dry it to use it right away.

Navy bean with ham soup in slow cooker. My recipe with any adjustments I think it will need for next time.

1/2 pound (450 g) dried navy beans
2 stalks of celery
2 or 3 carrots
2 large slices of onion (some use yellow, but I only had white so adjust accordingly)
1/2 tsp of diced or minced garlic.
water (or I may try chicken broth mixed with water next time for more flavor)
ham
salt as needed, depending on your ham. Easier to add after to taste.

Rinse and pick out any bad navy beans. Add to slow cooker. Cover navy beans with water to cover and more to bring the level to twice the "height" of the beans. Soak overnight.

Drain and rinse beans. Return to slow cooker and cover with water, adding more after adding veggies so that it's all covered.

Dice onion and celery. Cut peeled or thoroughly washed carrots into rounds. Add those with the garlic to the slow cooker.

If using a hambone, add entire thing to mix. If using a pre-cooked ham, cut into 1/2 chunks..as much as you want.

Cook on high for a couple of hours, then low for another 8 hours or so.

If you used a hambone, remove that and strip off any meat still clinging to bone to add back. Dispose of bone or give it to your dog. lol

Make some cornbread or have some bread and butter....or whatever bread you want. Goes really good with cornbread.

For us, this makes two meals each.

Sounds really good. Will give it a try next time we do a ham.

Tonight we had plain ole meatloaf with corn and carrots. I make a very basic meatloaf. Ground beef, crushed Ritz crackers, grated onion, a little garlic powder and some milk. Ketchup on top.
Had one of my daughter's friends (years ago) say "Now this is delicious meatloaf!" because her mom always added peppers and other things she didn't like, to pimp it up. lol

Sometimes I will add some cheddar in the middle. More like a cheeseburger really.

We love veggies so pretty much everything gets "pimped up".
N got a couple of marked down small steaks a while ago for something like 50 cents each. Thawed one out a couple of nights ago and cut it into thin strips and sautéed it with onions, peppers and mushrooms. Then made a sauce from the drippings, a bit of vino, some flour, an OXO cube, Italian seasoning, a bit of water and reduced it. We had some leftover cream so we tossed that into the mix as well along with the meat/veggies to reheat them.
Made some rigatoni and voila!... rigatoni Stroganoff...
Ok, so it's weird. It tasted good, though.

Trying vegetable paella for a pot luck on Friday. I'll try to post a pic.

Edit 1: It's in the oven. Cross your fingers. Mine are.

Edit 2: It flopped. It looks great but the rice didn't cook properly. Hell, I even followed a recipe to the letter.

Edit 3: Managed to salvage it somewhat. Put foil over the entire paella pan and steamed the rice in the oven. But the veggies were a bit overcooked but it tasted ok. Had to Google that solution.

Tonight was au gratin potatoes with the other half of the ham we bought for the bean soup. Yummm.
Since I knew it was going to be a killer day at work, I peeled and sliced the potatoes last night and shredded the cheese. I'm so glad I did that.

One of the perks of this job:

Last night was ginger meatballs, carrots and spaghettini tossed with garlic butter/soy sauce.
The carrots and spaghettini left behind by guests. (we've gotten a lot of pasta and rice this way, lol)

Today I made two banana breads with bananas left behind.

I do love this part of our job. lol We sometimes get ice cream, mostly in the winter which is odd. Real butter (which costs an arm and a leg here). Doritos, lol, which we never buy but enjoy. Sometimes canned soups, a few beer, chocolate bars etc. I still don't know why people leave opened containers of milk and cream. I'd never use that. Ever.

edited to add: Tonight it's baked frozen pizza left by a guest, with a salad.

We eat breakfast occasionally at a place where hubby orders their egg/ham/cheese frittata. He loves it, so the other night he googled a recipe and tried it with bacon instead of ham. It was fantastic!! A little work, but very tasty and I love the crisp bottom. It has been added to our dinner rotation for the future.
That with some toast or biscuits is very filling. May decrease the number of eggs and add some pan fries for the next time.

I could never make omelets worth a shyte. They always ended up looking like one big mish-mash of miscellaneous "stuff". Now I make good looking omelets - in the oven.

The frittata is cooked on the stove top until the bottom is browned and then put under the broiler to set the eggs. Hubby has one going as I type this. Yummmm.

Tonight I tried my hand at pan fries since we have about 10lbs of free potatoes, courtesy of guests.

Turned out great. Cut the potatoes into cubes (smallish, but not too small) and parboiled for about 3 minutes and drained well. Heated 2tbs of olive oil with about 2tbs of butter on medium heat until it looked "glossy". Added potatoes and just let them sit until they started browning on that side. I forgot to time that, but about 7-10 minutes. Then tossed and let sit some more. lol, I am bad about not timing things. Crispy outside, creamy inside. Tossed them with some garlic powder, salt and pepper. You might like some onion or peppers that have been pre-cooked and added toward the end, with the potatoes.

Greasy spoon restaurant secret: onion soup mix added to home fries along with real onions.

I use dried onion soup mix often ~ in meatloaf with BBQ sauce, tossed with cubed potatoes along with a bit of oil before either baking or pan-frying, with shredded Parm/Romano/bread crumbs to coat chicken or pork chops ~ it's a magic ingredient that fits well with other flavors and adds another flavor layer ~

Sooz

Onion soup mix has way too much salt for our liking and my BP. We can take or leave onions too. lol

Had fresh haddock fillets yesterday. Whisked some melted butter, turmeric, coriander and lime juice together and marinated the fish for 5-10 minutes then pan fried it for a minute or two on each side. Delicious. Definitely a keeper.

Egg soup... It fast and tasty.

Ingredients

4 cups (1 L) salt reduced chicken broth
2 tbsp (30 mL) salt reduced soy sauce
1 green onion, thinly sliced
2 eggs


Heat chicken broth and soy sauce in medium saucepan over high heat. Bring to boil. Stir in green onion.
Whisk eggs in small bowl. Slowly pour eggs in thin stream into broth, stirring gently. Serve immediately.

Had no green onions so sautéed regular onions with some mushrooms and tossed them in.

Sounds good oskar.

I've finally gotten around to my beef barley soup. It's in the crock pot right now. Will let you know.

Soup was good, but it thickened a little too much for my taste. Hubby loved it. I wonder why it got thick? Maybe the barley? Cooked too long?

Add a bit of stock or water if it's too thick.

LOL, I DID save some broth, but then forgot about it. Didn't think about water, especially since hubby liked it that way. Our server at Husky said that she found that making it in the slow cooker tends to make it more of a stew. Next time I may try stove top.

I've found slow cooker tends to turn things to mush. Good for pulled pork and such but the rest? Not so much. Only my opinion, of course.

roseanne, I asked my mom how my grandmother [who was an excellent cook] made beef barley soup ~ she said barley is starchy and that adds to the "thickness" of the soup ~ she also said "I think I remember ..." that my grandmother used to cook the barley separately and then added it to the soup to reheat before serving ~

Sooz