Today Ben and Julia had a SPAM cook-off party. My first thought when I got the invite was, "That's a bummer!" I was sure that SPAM probably had gluten in it to hold all that pressed meat together. A lot of processed foods and luncheon meats contain gluten. But to my surprise, right there on the can it says "gluten free". So I happily got into thinking up SPAM recipes.
I made arepas stuffed with SPAM and cheese, (and a tomatillo cilantro dip) and David made jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese and SPAM. There were several other entries, (as this was a contest with real prizes!)--there were a couple things I couldn't try, because of the gluten in the recipe. But would you believe that David and I won both prizes for best recipe, and most creative.
I think I need to keep some SPAM in the pantry for hurricane food. They say that SPAM will last indefinitely!
Well, I'll be. Something good to be said about SPAM. One of my secrets is that I love SPAM. I buy it a couple of times a year and have SPAM and eggs for dinner.... I like it pan fried for a sandwich the next day, as I get two meals from a can. You will have to let me know the ratio to cream cheese as that sounds yummy to me. Did David roast the jalapenos first?
ReplyDeleteActually, we kind of just made the recipe up, based on several we looked at on the internet. David didn't want to cover up the "delicate" taste of the SPAM, so I just set out some choices in spices to use with the cream cheese and very finely diced SPAM. I had about 4 ounces of cream cheese available, so he used half the can of SPAM to go with it--then later added some goat cheese and Monterrey jack cheese to make it all go further. He used a few Mexican spices and just mixed all that up. He took them to the party "fresh", then we all decided to roast a few of them a little and see how that was--and they were good either way.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
ReplyDelete