Pineapple Bourbon Spiral Ham and Creative Uses for the Leftovers

Our family is deeply divided when it comes to Easter. We all look forward celebrating Easter, but we just look forward to different aspects of the day. For the kids, it's all about the eggs: the hunt and the chocolate and candy free for all that follows it. When I look at their big smiles, their glazed over sugar coma eyes, and their messy chocolate mustaches, I can almost forgive them for waking me up at 5:30. This is the stuff of childhood memories. But as much as we like to stuff the eggs, hide the eggs, and then steal candy from our kids, for my husband and I, Easter is all about the spiral ham.

In previous years, I've tried to talk Steve into varying our menu. I've suggested rack of lamb, or garlic studded leg of lamb on the grill, even baby quail, but he won't even consider skipping his yearly ham, he loves those thick, pink, meaty slices too much. This is a marital battle I don't mind losing, because I love the ham leftovers. I can make a week's worth of lunches and dinners from the remains of our Easter dinner without getting bored. Spiral ham is so rich and its texture is so forgiving that it makes a wonderful base for:

• Pastas (pic to be added tonight once our pasta is cooked!)
• Soups
• Blow your family away with a sweet and savory apple pie
• scrambled eggs
• quiche
• stuffed tomatoes
• risotto
• Grilled Cheese
• Salads
• and even tacos

I had grandiose plans to cook the ham from scratch this Easter instead of reheating a pre-cooked version, but between the Passover holidays and my ob appointments, I ran out of time. Instead I settled for buying a nitrate-free, organic, free-range ham from Whole Foods and throwing that little dried out flavoring packet. We concocted our own basting liquid instead and combined it with fresh pineapple. The ham was even tastier than in years past, and tonight the fun of leftovers begins.

Pineapple Bourbon Spiral Ham
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 90 minutes
Ingredients
1 fresh pineapple
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1/4 cup of Bourbon
2 tablespoons of maple syrup
1 teaspoon of garlic powder
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
2 tablespoons of ground mustard
1/4 cup of soy sauce
salt and pepper to your liking

1. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Peel and core your pineapple and cut it up into 1 inch chunks. Take half the chunks and puree them in a food processor. Put the other half of the pineapple chunks in a bowl and set aside.
3. Add the remaining spices and ingredients to the food processor, just to make sure you don't forget any (as I've been known to with catch-all instructions like this one), I'll list them here: brown sugar, Bourbon, maple syrup, garlic powder, cinnamon, ground mustard, soy sauce, and salt and pepper. Pulse two or three times to mix. The liquid will now be frothy and will smell a little boozy.
4. Place the spiced pineapple liquid in a small saucepan and cook on low-medium flame until it begins to simmer. Stir frequently. Continue cooking for 2-3 minutes, just to blend the flavors together well and boil away a little of the alcohol.
5. Place the spiral ham in a large oven-proof casserole dish. Arrange the leftover pineapple chunks alongside. Pour a third of the pineapple liquid on top of the ham, using a spoon to drizzle some liquid over most of the ham.
6. Cover with foil and heat for an hour.
7. Turn the oven up to 400 degrees. Remove the foil and pour the remaining glaze on top of the ham. Cook for another 30 minutes to get the top of the ham nice and brown.
8. When serving, feel free to cut the ham in a criss-cross pattern. We chose not to.

Turkey Sloppy Joes Are the Perfect Sunday Night Comfort Food

Turkey Sloppy Joes are the perfect comfort food and healthy too.

These Turkey Sloppy Joes are one of my favorite Sunday afternoon dishes. They're a crowd pleaser, thanks to the fun cheddar buttermilk biscuits I serve them with. Everyone has a different technique in assembling their Sloppy Joes - some like to dip, others like to bite into a messy sandwich. And if my dream of a little quiet time on the couch doesn't materialize, I can still make dinner happen in less than an hour.

Before kids took over my schedule and my life, I used to try to squeeze every minute of fun out of Sunday to postpone the Monday blues as long as possible. I would run around in the Manhattan sunshine shopping, doing errands, and finish off the day with dinner and a movie, walking home hand in hand with my husband and tumbling into bed. But now my Sunday fantasies are much more mellow; an ideal Sunday afternoon has me sitting on the couch with a great book in hand while dinner cooks slowly in the kitchen.

Kicking off the week with a low fat but high flavor turkey dish that is studded with vegetables doesn't hurt either. Makes me feel like we're kicking off the week on a good note, and leftovers tide me over for lunch for a few days as well.

Turkey Sloppy Joes (adapted from Gourmet 2004)
Ingredients:
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 1/2 lbs ground turkey
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 32 oz can whole tomatoes in juice
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons molasses
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 1/4 teaspoons Tabasco

1) Heat oil in a wide and deep saucepan over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then saute onion, celery, and garlic until golden about 10 minutes. Add turkey and saute, stirring occasionally and breaking up large clumps with a wooden spoon, until meat is no longer pink. Stir in salt and pepper.
2) Puree tomatoes with juice, ketchup, molasses, brown sugar, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and Tabasco in a blender until smooth. Add to turkey and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until sauce is thickened, 25 to 30 minutes.
3) Serve turkey sloppy joes on split biscuits. They're even tastier the second day.


Cheddar Buttermilk Biscuits (directly from Gourmet without changes)
Ingredients
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cups cornmeal
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
6 oz extra sharp cheddar cheese, coarsely grated
3 tablespoons finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
3 scallions, finely chopped
1 1/3 cups well-shaken buttermilk

1) Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter one large baking sheet.
2) Whisk together flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl, then blend in butter wtih your fingertips or a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal. Stir in cheese and scallions with a wooden spoon, then add buttermilk and stir until just combined.
3) Drop dough in 8 equal mounds about 2 inches apart on baking sheet. Bake until golden, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a rack and cool to warm, about ten minutes, then cut in half horizontally.

The Death of the Commute Widow and the Birth of our Family Dinners

Nine months ago, I harbored a deep sense of guilt. Family dinners were a rare occurrence in our home. My husband's hour to hour and a half commute home in the evenings simply made it impossible. I fed the kids at 6, essentially throwing some simple fare in front of them while I worked on elaborate meals to share with him after their bedtime. He would come home in time to put them to bed and kiss them goodnight. The system was the best we could do with our schedule, but it felt fractured and wrong.

For a few years, the media had been all abuzz about a recent Columbia University Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) study touting the benefits of family dinner.  The study looked at teens and their families for a decade in an effort to identify factors limiting underage drinking, substance abuse, or smoking.

CASA's conclusion was clear:
Frequent family dining is associated with lower rates of teen smoking, drinking, illegal drug use and prescription drug abuse. Compared to teens who eat dinner frequently with their families (five or more family dinners per week), those who have infrequent family dinners (fewer than three per week) are:
• three and a half times likelier to have abused prescription drugs,
• three and a half times likelier to have used an illegal drug other than marijuana or prescription drugs,
• three times likelier to have used marijuana,
• more than two and a half times likelier to have used tobacco, and
• one and a half times likelier to have used alcohol.

We knew our quality of life would improve in Ohio, but it was just a fuzzy concept amidst a long laundry list of moving considerations. I could not envision that our relocation would create a new phenomenon in our house: the rebirth of the family dinner.

Now, most weeknights will find us gathered around the table together at dinner time, like a traditional, June Cleaver family. On good nights, with proper motivation, the kids even set the table! Clearing is still, sadly, a parent-only task however.

It took some doing to change bad habits, to teach the kids to sit at the table after their scarfed down the food on their plate, to encourage them to open up about their day and their thoughts, but family dinners have become something we all look forward to. We discuss highs and lows of the day, and talk about the plans for the weekend. Conversation amongst five people of such different ages is not something that came naturally. It was hard work to teach the kids to actually listen and respond to each other, and to train ourselves to put away the attention-robbing Blackberries. But little by little, we're learning.

Time seems to slow down when we all sit down together, and for a few minutes, before pre-bedtime crankiness kicks in, I can actually feel the benefits of family dinner seeping in.