The Food - Apple Cider Boiled Ham

Apple Cider Boiled Ham with Apricot Glaze

Baked Buttercup Squash and Apples

With Sauteed Mustard Greens and onions

We get a side of pork every year from the farm where we get our cow's milk share.  The pigs are milk fed on the same wonderful raw, organic milk we drink. They also get pasture forage and some organic supplemental feed.  The meat is fantastic.  We always get a bit of the pork cured into hams and bacon.  The processor uses nitrites, so we are stepping outside of what is optimal, in terms of avoiding unnessessary chemicals, but a little tast of ham and bacon each year is really a nice thing. 

This was a half ham; the last of last year's.  This year's piggie will be ready for us to pick up any time now, so I needed room in the freezer.  And I was in a hurry as yesterday was a busy day collecting the birds from the processor and trying to  get laundry, riding and gardening in ahead of my work days and the snow coming in.  So I did not measure anything.  I will do my best to estimate amounts.  (It used to  make me so mad when my gramma would do that ... now I understand!)

For Boiling

1/2 cured smoked ham - defrosted
Apple cider
Water

For Glazing

Boiled, smoked ham
1 buttercup squash, cut into 1/8ths
2 apples cut in half through the equator
1 jar of apricot preserves
Honey
Salt
Olive oil
Ground cinnamon
Ground cloves
Ground nutmeg

Mustard Greens

Fresh picked mustard greens (I used combined seed from about 4 years, so we have mixed varieties)
     washed and chopped into @ 2 inch strips
1 onion, chopped
Olive oil
Salt

Place the ham in a pot that is just a bit bigger around than it is, and deep enough to hold the ham with liquid to cover.  Cover with 3/4 apple cider to 1/4 water.  Bring to a boil and simmer for 25 minutes per pound or until fully cooked.  Scim off any scum that forms in the first few minutes of boiling.

When the ham is cooked, place it skin side up in a large roasting pan.  Place the sections of squash and apples around the ham, skin sides down.  Scoop out the cores of the apples with a melon baller.  Drizzle some olive oil over the squash.  Fill the cavities in the apples with honey.  Warm the apricot preserves until you are able to pour them over the ham and then do so, slowly.  Sprinkle salt on the squash and then sprinkle the other seasonings in more or less equal amounts over the whole contents of the roasting pan.  Cover and roast in a 350 oven for 45 minutes, or until the glaze on the ham as turned a golden brown and the squash and apples are soft to a fork. 

While the ham and squash and apples are in the oven, saute the mustard greens with the onion in about a 1/4 inch of olive oil until wilted and tender.  Salt to taste.

This turned out well enough to make us smile, even though we felt compelled to watch another presidential debate!