Day Ten Recipe: Holiday Ham

A quick note before the recipe....I always Seem to get so super stressed when I am making a big dinner on the holidays, with family and friends sitting around my house enjoying the day. I am hard at work in the kitchen becoming more and more stressed with every minute. By the time dinner is finally on the table I am sweating, tired and crabby. Thankfully my friends and family are almost always there to help, but the stress is there none the less.
ANYHOW, the point of this endless babbling, is that to my great surprise, this dinner; almost exactly the same as I would make for Christmas eve; came with basically no stress what so ever. What a nice difference.
SO take this recipe and enjoy and enjoy it even more if you can make it on a non holiday occassion!


HOLIDAY HAM

INGREDIENTS:


7-10 Lb Bone in Ham
3 Cups Brown sugar, Packed
¼ Cup Prepared Mustard
1 &½ Cups Cola
1 14 oz Can Sliced Pineapple, drained juice reserved
½ Cup Apple Juice
10-12 Maraschino Cherries (Optional)
Whole Cloves

DIRECTIONS:


Pre heat oven to 325 degrees.
Score Ham Crosswise and lengthwise; ¼ Inch deep and about 1 inch apart.
Put one clove in the middle of each square.
In a bowl, combine brown sugar and mustard. I use a small spoon and sometimes even my hands to get this to the right consistency. Should be like a super thick paste.
Now, Place ham flat side down in a large roasting pan. Squash the sugar mixture onto the ham. Some of this will fall into the pan and that is OK.
Put ham in the oven.
After 30 minutes remove from oven, pour cola over the ham and mix everything in the bottom of the pan with a fork. Baste ham and put back in the oven for another 20 minutes.
Mix together apple juice and reserved pineapple juice.
Now pour juices over the ham, mix with the bottom of the pan stuff and baste again. Put ham back in the oven.
NOW, your ham has been in the oven for a total of 50 minutes so far. Time to do a bit of math…..your ham should cook for a total of 20 minutes PER POUND. Take your total cook time (pounds X 20 Minutes) minus 50 minutes, and you have how long there is left to cook.
Example: If your ham is 7 pounds, it should cook for a total of 140 minutes. It has been in for 50 minutes already, so it should bake for another 90 minutes.
Baste every 20 minutes.
For the last 20 minutes, put the pineapple rings on the ham (use some toothpicks to hold them on).
Remove ham and place on a platter. Put a cherry in each of the pineapple rings, and you are ready to rock!