Ham and Red Pepper Tea Sandwiches (Bocaditos de Jamón)

Every birthday party growing up there was this mandatory tray of ham croquettes, guava pastries, beef pastries, and these tasty little sandwiches. If you ordered them at a Cuban bakery they'd be served on sweet bread, if they were homemade they'd probably just be on plain white sandwich bread.  

After moving to Orlando I realized that there were certain things you just couldn't get around here decent ham croquettes and these tasty sandwiches were chief among them.  Although I will admit I had something similar at a tea house in Mount Dora, but it still wasn't the same!

So a few years ago after my friend Oscar's grandmother sent him home with a huge care package which just so happened to contain this spread.  I set out to make it, but lower in fat.

Ingredients:

1/4 LB 96% fat free ham 

8oz package fat free cream cheese (today I used Neufchâtel cheese because there was no fat free at the store.)

1 tbsp American mustard

1/2 jar of roasted red peppers and some of the juice

Directions: cut up the ham into large chunks and add to food processor. Add cream cheese, mustard, peppers and about two tablespoons of pepper juice (reserve the rest to add as needed). Process until it has a very smooth consistency.  You may need to stop every once in a while to stir and make sure the blade is processing any large chunks.

Once the spread looks smooth transfer contents to a storage container an refrigerate so that it firms up a bit more.

 (2 hours is best).  Then prepare your desired bread or veggies (this actually makes a really good dip).  Today I used plain sandwich bread with the crusts cut off and the sandwiches cut into triangles.  If I were making these for a party I would probably buy mini Hawaiian rolls as they are very similar to the sweet rolls used at Cuban bakeries.  Either way enjoy.