Ham Sandwich Indicted!

Ramp season is rapidly fading, so last weekend I stocked up on a bunch while I had the chance.  Since I still had some pickled from last year, I decided to try something a little different.  Inspired by the almighty internet, I tried my hand at making a ramp confit. To confit something is to cook an ingredient in fat, then store it in that same fat. Most typically, meats are confited--duck or goose confit is fairly common, and while it sounds fancy, it's essentially duck pieces slowly cooked in rendered duck fat then submerged and stored in the cooking fat.  It is an ancient means of preservation, as the fat keeps out air and bacteria, and was used (back in the day) to store food without refrigeration.  Vegetables can also be preserved via confit, and there are recipes out there using mushrooms, onions and garlic.  With ramps being part of the same family as onions and garlic, it made sense to give it a go and try to hang on to ramp season a little whil...

Ramps are another one of those things that make Ohio pretty awesome (along with Jeni's Ice Cream and Barley's Brewing Co , and pretty much everything else I mention in this blog...) Ramps, if you don't live in a state bordering the Appalachian Mountains, grow wild in said mountains and foothills of those mountains, and are a short-lived Spring treat. Part of the allium family, they are sometimes called wild leeks or spring onions. They're a cross in taste (in my opinion) of a scallion and garlic. They are also delicious. Having first read about ramps last year in Bittman's blog, Bitten, I found some end-of-season stragglers and made them into some pretty delicious biscuits . This year, I was ready for them, and made a beeline to The Hills market this past Saturday morning to pick some up. Based on my research, I found that you can do a lot of things with ramps to prolong your enjoyment of them. There are several recipes for pickling the bottom white parts,...