My neighbor’s boyfriend gave me a ham that had to weigh about 8 pounds.

As I spend the first decade of my adult life cooking as a vegetarian— I have never made a ham.

So this was a first.

To use all this ham:

• I sliced some big pieces for sandwiches.
• I took the pieces half of the size of the sandwiches and labeled them “breakfast” for ham and eggs.
• I shredded the dry pieces for soup.
• I, with the teenager’s help, made ham salad. We even had army teenager over to open the pickle jar.
• I froze some ham.
• I had a ham sandwich on white bread with extra big slices of American cheese.
• I packaged some ham for a friend.
• I put the ham bone, all the fat, and some smoked pork neck bones in the crock pot to make stock for ham and black bean soup.

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