The Annual Eight Days of Ham Celebration Begins

This year my dear husband brought home an 18-pound

fully-cooked, bone-in smoked ham.

Doing the math, that meant that this puppy had

to have the oven all to itself for 3-1/2 hours in order to reheat.

At least I learned my lesson and planned my meal accordingly

this time.

My partial mise en place for the ham consists of

the ham,

brown sugar, whole cloves and fresh pineapple slices.

I later added some liquid from the canned pineapple

from another dish and some Country Dijon mustard to

the basting glaze.

After scoring the ham in a diamond pattern,

I thinly sliced the fresh pineapple and secured

each piece to the ham with a whole clove.

I brushed the ham with the glaze and repeated each hour

as it cooked at 325 degrees.

As the ham seemed to be getting a bit dark,

I covered it the last hour with some foil

and turned down the heat to 300.

In the last half hour I turned off the oven and let the

ham sit in the still-hot oven.

I then took the ham out of the oven and let it rest

for 15 minutes before carving.

For one of the side dishes, I thought we would try

Maxine's Pineapple Casserole.

Fellow food blogger, Rosie Hawthorne,

has raved about this dish,

and as the Foodie Boyfriend loves pineapple,

this seemed a good time to make it.

Following Rosie's lead, I am making a half batch.

First the pineapple goes in a buttered baking dish.

Then the flour and sugar are sprinkled over top.





Then the cheddar cheese is layered on top.

Crumbled Ritz crackers go over that.

Then the mostly melted butter is poured over the casserole.

This bakes in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

The ham is ready to be carved.

Ham, pineapple casserole, mashed potatoes

and pea salad make for a nice dinner.

Day one of the Eight Days of Ham is over.

After removing the meat from the bone,

we are left with 10 pounds 6-7/8 ounces of ham

for the remaining Seven Days of Ham.

Stay tuned to see what happens next.