How To Cook A Thanksgiving Ham

Yes, you read correctly.  I said ham.  Not turkey.  I was asked to bring a ham to the family Thanksgiving dinner as there were a lot of people there and it was feared that turkey wouldn't be enough.

Before I talk about how to cook the ham, I must report on The Girls.  Right up until a few days ago it was looking like Ruth wasn't going to pull her own weight in the egg laying business and if you recall, I'd told The Girls I was not having any lazy business.  If they weren't laying by Thanksgiving we were going to have roast chicken instead of turkey!  Well, Ruth cowed to peer pressure and joined the crowd and started to lay a few days prior to Thanksgiving.

I was talking to my baby sis on the phone and told her the latest in the The Girls saga and she told me that she was glad The Girls were all laying but knowing my luck, they would all lay clear up until Thanksgiving Day and then stop laying for Black Friday...............  I told her she was probably right and not only would they stop laying but they would find a type writer, write me a letter, and force me to stand in line at Wal-Mart for a big screen TV so they could watch football games through out the holidays!  As if sitting in a heated posh gypsy wagon isn't good enough!

Well, I can tell you I was NOT going to have any of that so I went out and had a talk with The Girls.  Showed them who was boss.  Showed them I was still top hen in this roost, yes I did!  I'm so glad they saw things my way because they are at this moment out busily producing me some eggs instead of heading to the chopping block to be saved for Christmas dinner.  A big screen TV indeed!  Good thing I'm a tough old bird!

Cooking Thanksgiving Ham, Rachel style:

The night before Thanksgiving you come to the conclusion that if the amount of tired/exhaustion you are feeling is any indication of how you are going to feel the next day, then you are not going to want to get up early to make the glaze for the ham so best do it the night before so you can sleep in a bit.  This is after several hours of baking so of course your brain is a little fuzzy.  You must get that fuzzy part in there somewhere okay?  Otherwise your ham glaze won't work!

The glaze is made and put into a plastic container tucked away in your fridge for the next day.

Thanksgiving morning arrives.  You stay in bed for as long as possible coming up with all sorts of strategies on how if you eat your breakfast while showering, brush your teeth while getting dressed, stand all of The Native's in a line outside and douse them with a hose instead of them showering individually you can stay in bed for an extra 20 minutes!

Inevitably the time comes when you have to get out of bed and get to work.  Because you've stretched things time wise, you are running around the kitchen a bit spasmodically.  You grab the glaze you'd made the night before, throw it over your ham ignoring the fact that something doesn't seem to be right and tell yourself it is a good thing you made the glaze the night before because obviously your brain is hazy and not working that morning.

You go about your morning preparations and wonder why the ham isn't filling the house with the normal glaze smell but don't stop to analyze as you've a herd to get out the door in less time than you'd given yourself  to spend the day with relatives.

At some point you realize you've not basted the ham and you better get to it.  You open the oven and start basting wondering why your glaze is all thick now and doesn't look right but again because you're in a hurry and all hazy in the brain you shrug your shoulders and fly off to the next task.

As you are pulling out the things you'd made the night before from the fridge to be put into coolers you find a plastic container that has what appears to be the ham glaze in it only how can that be possible........ you already put the glaze on the ham.  You open the container and sure enough!  It's the ham glaze.  WHAT IN THE WORLD DID I GLAZE MY HAM WITH????

The ham is yanked out of the oven as The SM laughs and tells you that the left over pumpkin pie filling that we were going to save and make more pies with......... he'd put it in a container just like my ham glaze container the night before, they were the same color, and filled to about the same amount.  I'd just glazed my ham for about an hour in pumpkin pie filling.............

The ham was thrown into the sink and rinsed as best we could, the pan cleaned, the ham returned to the pan, and the ham GLAZE put on top of the ham.  Back in the oven the ham went, phone calls made, we're going to be a tidge late, is everything okay?, Yes, everything is fine, thank you for asking, and then I go and crawl under my bed and suck my thumb.

And THAT!  My friends....... is how you properly cook a Thanksgiving ham because the whole time you are eating it, you are giving thanks that the pumpkin pie washed off and your ham doesn't taste awful like you'd feared.

The End!