Holiday Ham

Two of the world’s great religions prohibit eating pork products as "unclean." The week before the Christian holiday of Easter, however, most big grocery chains put ham on sale.

Easter in Westminster

On a key holiday that differentiates our religion from those of similar theological pedigree, we as Christians not only have a savior who died for our sins, paving the way for us to go to heaven, but we also get to enjoy that sweet meat forbidden by Jewish and Muslim traditions. And at reduced prices.  Vive la différence!

Ham works great for large groups on holidays other than Easter, including the 4th of July, except for those with religious objections and vegetarians. I personally think the religious ban of ham is based on health concerns from long ago, possibly following a pig sushi fad or some similarly misguided pork preparation, or maybe an ancient swine flu outbreak. As for vegetarians, let them eat cake, because most likely tofu won't go over big.

I am not forcing anyone to prepare or eat ham. I’m simply sharing a delicious food.



While spiral cut hams are convenient for serving, it is usually the shank ham with bone-in that is on sale, and it is just as delicious. Some people swear that you have to go through some elaborate preparation of coating it with brown sugar and exotic spices and then tacking on some pineapple rings and Maraschino cherries. If you want to do that, knock yourself out, but hams have so much flavor that to me all that window dressing is overkill.

The cooking time varies by the size and type of ham. If it doesn’t tell you how long to cook it on the wrapper, you can find that info online. The big Q-CC tip is to cover your cooking pan with Reynolds Non-Stick Pan Lining Paper before putting the ham in.


While ham can be the main course for a large family meal, it is the leftovers that we enjoy the most. By slicing it up and storing it in Tupperware, you can prepare subsequent meals quickly and easily. Because it is cured, ham has a pretty long refrigerator shelf life, and it tastes so good that you should have no trouble eating it all in that time frame.

4th of July in New York

We threw away the bone including quite a bit of meat still on it, but boiling this in water makes a great base for bean or split pea soup, if you enjoy the smell of those soups cooking.

For breakfast, dice the ham and add it to enhance scrambled eggs instead of having a side of bacon. When I have company, I like to heat the diced ham in the frying pan first to carmelize it a bit, mixing eggs with grated cheese separately to add to the pan to scramble in with the ham, but this morning I just combined everything in the large frying pan, saving the step of cleaning the mixing bowl, and it tasted just as good. I use about a cup of ham with four eggs and a quarter cup of grated cheese, but you can adjust the recipe to suit your taste. Just keep stirring the concoction over medium heat until it looks ideally done to you (probably about three to five minutes), and then plate it. You don’t need to add any salt, because the ham and cheese have plenty in them. It really doesn’t need pepper either, because the ham has so much flavor.

To make a ham and cheese omelet instead of scrambled eggs, just stop scrambling the mixture once it looks uniform. Let it sit until the eggs start firming up. You should be able to lift one side with a spatula without the omelet breaking apart. Once it has that consistency, add as much grated cheese as you like as filling, then fold it over. If the outside of the omelet looks golden or brown already, just plate it. If not, you can cook it a bit more or serve it yellow. The grated cheese will melt quickly once surrounded by that hot folded omelet.

Ham, of course, is also great for lunch. You can use diced ham in a chef’s salad, but to me salads frequently don’t seem filling, and the salad dressing makes chef salads among the most high calorie items on fast food menus, if you ever take the time to read that info.




Typical urbanite dining out.

I prefer ham sandwiches. Sandwiches can go from mediocre to awesome just by taking time to think about what would taste good in them. Any time you have an avocado around, that is a treat in a ham sandwich, but I didn’t have one on hand yesterday. I did have lettuce, tomato and a toaster. I toasted the low carb bread to give it a little more structural integrity, and then put light mayonnaise on one piece. I sliced a Roma tomato directly onto the mayo-coated toast, peppered it, added Romaine lettuce and then piled on sliced ham. I put honey Dijon mustard on the other piece of bread and closed it up with the toast's dry side out (if that isn’t obvious, then perhaps you should not be preparing meals at home with a sharp object).  Fantastic sandwich!

None of this seems particularly groundbreaking, but when you realize that similar food with a soft drink runs $10 or more in a restaurant, you should recognize that learning how to cook a $10 ham and then utilize the leftovers will save you big bucks.

If you’re going to spend big money for a HoneyBaked Ham or some similar expensively processed product, the savings quickly evaporate. Yes, buying a pre-cooked ham or meal in a restaurant saves you the trouble of cleaning up, but you’ll note that the Quick-Clean Cuisine method means minimal clean-up time.

And for my Jewish friends (and other non-pork eating, non-vegetarians), there's always tri-tip.