Happy 2013 (and 'Twas a Very Spreckles Christmas!)

Wow.  I'm sure glad THAT'S over with!

We survived the Mayan Apocalypse *and* Holiday Traffic.  Que Milagro!

Christmas was actually pretty quiet and low-key for us - which is good.  I did bake a simply phenomenal Spreckles Holiday Ham (and I have never ever cooked a big fresh ham before).

Christmas is not a day for documenting recipes, so I'll just kinda cheat and post links instead...

After confirming with the butcher (and I can't tell you how many of my conversations w/them started with "Can I ask you a really dumb question?!"), the ham - having been smoked - was considered "pre-cooked" and therefore only needed to be re-heated.

I lost track of all the websites I'd perused in my quest for "How to cook the perfect ham" - but this is the one I followed most closely: Here.  I put a splash of apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, honey and maple syrup in the bottom of the pan.  As for glazing: I sliced diamonds in the skin and placed whole cloves at each of the intersections. Then I smeared a glaze of yellow-mustard, honey and maple syrup on the ham, let it melt a bit, then - toward the end of cooking - I added pineapple slices, maraschino cherries and a generous dusting of white + brown sugar.  Baked it @ 425* for the first hour, then reduced the heat to 350* and cooked it for appx 2 add'l hours (I honestly don't remember how long I cooked it!).

Yeah, so I stayed pretty true to that recipe - except for the addition of appx 1/4 cup of pure maple syrup.  And, even though that recipe was for a much smaller ham (Spreckle's butt was 10#!), I had plenty of leftover glaze that never even made it onto the ham!

So, to recap, Spreckles before:

A Mighty Fine Pig!

Spreckles during:

Spreckles after:

Yes, Spreckles was delicious.

And my shiny new Henckels knives (prezzie from Hubs) came in MOST handy!  I loves me some good knives - yes I do!

So yeah, we snarfed down most of Spreckles on Christmas, and we had quite a few tasty ham sandwiches.  I still had a big chunk o' ham leftover, so I wrapped it up and tossed it back in the freezer for future meals...

We also had Gulliver's Creamed Corn (orgasmic!), mashed taters, and baked apples.  Oh, and a store-bought Pecan Tart for dessert.

All told, a very delicious meal!

Now, unfortunately, you may have noticed that I've gone a bit quiet, of late.  That's because I'm in the midst of another Psoriasis flare-up and I'm feeling pretty crappy, overall.  In fact, it was bad enough that I had to miss out on our NYE plans - Furthur Concert in San Francisco.  Hubs ended up hooking up with one of his Deadhead Friends, so it's not like the tickets were wasted.  But still, it bums me out in a big way...

I've gone back to the Dermatologist and her advice (now) is to stop ALL drugs - except antibiotics - and wait and see if it clears-up on its own.  There was a "rant" post in the works, but I'm just too run-down to even bitch about it (but I am already thinking about going back to Stanford Dermatology and insisting on a newer doctor).

So there is the Holiday Wrap-Up - such as it is.  Hopefully I'll pull out of this funk soon - and get back to blogging!