Boiled Ham Dinner

Set the Table: eight years. What started with six girls and scrambled eggs is now forty girls across two locations. Eight years. Eighty-seven girls total who learned to crack an egg, make a roux, feed themselves. I don't have a wall of plaques. I have eighty-seven girls and a church kitchen and the belief that a twelve-year-old with a spatula is the most powerful thing in the world.

Held a celebration Saturday. Destiny — now twenty-four, working as a prep cook in Charlotte — sent a video: "Mrs. Washington taught me that I was worth a real meal. That sounds simple. It wasn't." Some of the girls cried. The right kind of crying.

I keep thinking about Vanessa's words: make it survive without you. I need to formalize. Nonprofit status. Board. Funding. I talked to Derek Sunday night. He said, "You've been an institution for eight years. Now you just need the paperwork." Derek. The man who sees the whole picture while I'm still painting brushstrokes.

Aaliyah made a full meal at the celebration: rice, scrambled eggs, sautéed vegetables. Served it to her mother Denise. Denise ate every bite and said, "Where did you learn this?" Aaliyah said, "Mrs. Washington." But I didn't teach Aaliyah to cook. I taught her she was worth feeding. The cooking came after. The worthiness is the first ingredient.

Sunday spread for four — fried chicken (baked, cornflake crust), mac and cheese, green beans, cornbread.

After Saturday’s celebration—Destiny’s video, Aaliyah serving her mother that full plate, forty girls who know now what they’re worth—I needed Sunday to feel like something. Not fancy. Not performative. Just real, slow, the kind of meal that fills a kitchen with steam and fills a house with the understanding that everyone at that table deserves to be fed well. A boiled ham dinner is exactly that: humble ingredients that become something generous if you give them enough time, enough heat, enough care. That’s what we’ve been doing for eight years. This is just the version you can make on a Sunday afternoon.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 2 hours | Total Time: 2 hours 15 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

2 lbs smoked bone-in ham hocks (or 1 1/2 lbs smoked ham, cut into large pieces)
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth or water
4 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, quartered
4 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch chunks
1 small head of green cabbage, cut into 4 wedges
2 medium yellow onions, quartered
3 cloves garlic, smashed
1 bay leaf
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
Salt to taste (add at end — ham brings its own salt)

Instructions

Start the ham. Place ham hocks in a large Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pot. Pour in broth or water — liquid should cover the ham by at least 2 inches. Add garlic, bay leaf, black pepper, and red pepper flakes if using. Bring to a boil over high heat.
Simmer low and slow. Once boiling, reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and simmer for 1 hour 30 minutes, until the ham is very tender and pulling away from the bone. Skim any foam from the surface during the first 20 minutes.
Add the vegetables. Add onions, carrots, and potatoes to the pot. Return to a gentle simmer, cover, and cook for 20 minutes.
Add the cabbage. Nestle cabbage wedges into the broth. Cover and cook an additional 15 to 20 minutes, until cabbage is tender but not falling apart and potatoes are cooked through.
Taste and serve. Remove bay leaf. Taste broth and season with salt only as needed. Pull ham meat from the bone if using hocks and return meat to the pot. Ladle into wide bowls, making sure each serving gets ham, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, and a generous pour of the broth.

Nutrition (per serving)

Boiled Ham Dinner — A Sunday Spread Worthy of Every Girl Who Ever Learned She Deserved One