Baking a ham...

today I am baking a ham for the church dinner, it is a shank ham, with bone in.  I had the butcher slice the ham for me, to prevent having to get it all sliced up Sunday morning.  I will bake it, pouring a mixture of mustard, pineapple juice and brown sugar over it.  After I bake it and it is finished I will put it in my large crockpot and pour all the juices over it. Then on Sunday morning I will turn my crockpot onto keep warm and it will keep the ham warm. 

How do you bake your hams??

A favorite recipe of mine

and it seems I only make it during the holidays, or for a church dinner.
Green Bean/Green Pea Salad

Drain your green beans and green peas and add them to a bowl (I use a can of each, the little bitty sweet peas are best in this) also drain a small jar of pimentos and a can of water chesnut.  (chop up the water chesnut) Add green onions to it, chopped up (a small bundle is plenty) Toss all this together, and then dress with a mixture of half a cup of oil, half a cup of apple cider vinegar, and a teaspoon of sugar.  Mix it all well then refrigerate, this salad is best after it soaks in all the vinegar YUMMY!!

The new dessert recipe I tried for Thanksgiving...

It was YUMMY!!! Fattening...too.  And super simple...

First take a cake mix and a stick of butter, melt the butter and mix it with the cake mix, pat it into a 9x13 (greased) pan  Then top with all sorts of things...here is how I topped mine, I first put down a bag of white chocolate/semi sweet chocolate swirled chips, then a half a bag of coconut, then two cups of pecans and then another bag of the swirl white/semi choccy chips.  Then I poured a can of sweetened condensed milk over it and baked it at 350 for 30-45 minutes.  The possibilites are endless with this idea, you could add candied fruit, you can add all sorts of flavored chips, in fact the one I am making for our church dinner this weekend, I am using a bag of peanut butter/semi choccy swirl chips, along with the white and semi swirled.  You could add walnuts instead of pecans.  This is a easy peasy recipe, I will say that we enjoyed heating it just a bit in the microwave because it is better warm.  It is super rich though. 

Kitchen Tip Tuesday...

Love cookies?  Want to make the yummiest sugar cookie you have ever eaten?  Use a yellow cake mix, an egg, half a cup of oil and mix well, adding a bit of water (maybe a fourth of a cup, I usually just fill up the empty egg shell twice) and drop by spoonfuls and bake until done (about 7 or 8 minutes) THE best cookies ever!!!  And when you can catch cake mixes on sale, stock up!

Don't forget to check out Kitchen Tip Tuesday At Tammys Recipes.com

Traditions

  What are some holiday traditions of your family?  Do you have special movies you watch together every year?  Do you all put the tree up together?  Please share your traditions with us. 


One of our traditions is decorating the trees together, we put Christmas music on and drag the trees (yes plural, we put up 3 trees) and put them all up.  I usually remember where each ornament came from, who gave it to me, for what occasion, and we talk about holidays past.  When the boys were small we always bought a toy with them for the toy drives in the community.  This year is our first without John and I am trying to think of a new tradition to start that will make our holiday a bit easier. 

Snacky foods..

ok, for Thanksgiving we are having a ham (for sandwiches) and snacky type foods so share some of your favorites..

I am taking a block of cream cheese with jalepeno jelly and some crackers.. and a cheese ball and a dessert

share a favorite snacky food

Crockpot cooking

If you have never seen the blog about a year of cooking in a crockpot,  A Year of Slow Cooking you need to see it.   She cooked all sorts of things in her crockpot, it even got her on the Rachel Ray Show. 

I have 3 crockpots, one HUGE one, and two small one quart or one and half quart ones.  I use them all the time.  In my house, we dont care for a green bean that isnt cooked DEAD!!  I mean it needs to be nearly mush..and no liquid UNLESS it has been cooked for a long time, it can have liquid, at holiday time, I load up my little crockpots with canned green beans and cook over night, and all day on low...PERFECTION!! Now I know some of you just gagged...but it is how we eat them...your green beans can crunch all you want, ours are dead and slide down easily. 

My crockpots are used to meeting cold things, I am the queen of putting meat straight out of the freezer into the crockpot.  Turn on high and cook all day and presto it is done.  I rarely remember to thaw things, since I am not the best menu planner, actually I can plan menus great, I just dont stick to them...ROFL
Like I said yesterday Minute steak with a jar of salsa is great in the crockpot.  I cook hamburger in my crockpot for tacos, it is easy and you dont have to stand over a pan stirring.  I just toss in the ground beef frozen and season it and leave it, at the end of the day I drain the grease off and crumble it up, super easy and dinner is ready. 
Beans, and soups also are something I cook alot in my crockpot...
Share some of your favorite crockpot meals..