Surely everyone is eating leftover ham this week, right? If you aren’t, your Easter ham wasn’t big enough. Greg and I have about 10 pounds of leftover ham! And I couldn’t be happier about it. I have a stock pile of recipes that I’ve been saving for all of this leftover ham. This pasta was first on my list.

When I said we have 10 pounds of leftover ham, I was not exaggerating. My family has always raised pigs for our own consumption. We don’t sell it here at the farm as we are not licensed to do so but each year we have fresh, homegrown pork. This year my uncle raised an entire pig for Greg and me. We assisted in the butchering. Yep, we know exactly where our meat comes from now. Anyways, we have A LOT of pork, including two 20-pound hams. We had the hams professionally smoked and then prepared one this weekend for Easter. We made a glaze using garlic, fresh oranges, brown sugar, onion and cardamom.

So in typical Monday fashion I needed to overload our dinner with vegetables. Especially after Easter weekend – So. Much. Chocolate.

Since the weather has finally warmed, we’re busy planting lettuce, peas, corn, broccoli, kale and much more. Our asparagus is finally starting to come up! (Asparagus is a perennial plant that comes back each year. We only re-plant about every 15-20 years.) We are hoping to start picking the first of May. (Currently, we’re still selling asparagus from California but it’s been pretty good this year). It’s a little later than usual given the harsh winter we had but I think we’ve finally made it out!

I used these medium-sized stem tomatoes. We get them from a local hydroponic grower in Indiana County. The main benefit of a local tomato is that they can be picked when they are ripe which makes all the difference. The tomatoes that come from out of state through the winter are picked before they are ripe so they aren’t damaged during transportation. They will ripen when left at room temperature but the flavor is just not the same as a vine-ripened tomato.

The fresh herbs make this dish. You can substitute dried herbs but it’s spring – time to use the fresh ones!

If you use fresh herbs a lot, you should definitely grow your own. They are super easy and it’s so convenient to have them readily available. I find I waste a lot less also because I just pick what I need. You can plant them in your garden or in pots to keep on the porch. Within a week or so it will be safe to plant herbs outside. We sell a variety of herbs and also the convenient mixed pots pictured above.

Our neighbors, Grandma’s Country Oven Bake Shoppe, sell these Ariston Olive Oils. The rosemary infused one worked really well for this dish. I used it for roasting the tomatoes and sautéing the vegetables – gives it a little extra flavor! And it made my kitchen smell awesome.

Roasting the tomatoes is an extra step. You could just put the raw tomatoes directly into the vegetable mixture and let them cook with everything else. But I LOVE roasted tomatoes. I think it gives you a more concentrated tomato flavor and the blistery skin gives you a nice texture. Using the Ariston Rosemary Infused Olive Oil for this step really made the tomatoes pop :)

As long as you are using leftover or pre-cooked ham, this dish comes together quickly. Watch your vegetables as they cook and test them as you don’t want to over cook them. Al dente vegetables compliment the pasta well.

So now we only have about 9.5 pounds of leftover ham to eat.