Green Eggs and Easter Ham

This has become a tried and true recipe in our house. I used this recipe for the first time three years ago when I made my first Easter dinner and my first ham. My husband and I loved the recipe so much that I've never used any other ham glaze. He says it's a tradition now and that Easter isn't complete without my ham. The man loves me and my cooking :)

I realized when preparing this years Easter ham that I haven't shared this awesome recipe with all of you yet! So if you're looking for an awesome ham recipe, this is IT!

To make the glaze you'll need:
- a bowl to mix it in
- a liquid measuring cup
- a basting brush
- 1/3 measuring cup
- 1 Tablespoon
- 1 teaspoon

The glaze ingredients:
(1 Bone-in Ham)
- Dijon Mustard
- Balsamic Vinegar
- Brown Sugar
- Black Pepper
- Rosemary
- White Wine or Champagne
(We don't include the alcohol, as there are some family members that don't like alcohol.)

Combine all ingredients, except the alcohol.

If you're going to include alcohol in the recipe it goes in later.

1/3 cup brown sugar

Add 3 Tablespoons Balsamic Vinegar

Add 3 Tablespoons Dijon Mustard

Add 1 teaspoon Black Pepper

My mortar and pestle comes in handy to crush rosemary!

Add 1 Tablespoon crushed rosemary

Next, mix the ingredients together.

Seriously the BEST glaze EVER!

Cook the ham according to package directions. Basting it periodically while it cooks.
This year we used a spiral cut but other hams will need to be scored before basting and cooking.

Enjoy this wonderful ham for next Easter or an occasion!

We sure do!

Happy Crafting!

Nutella Waffles

My husband helped me make breakfast this morning. I decided to try a new twist on an old favorite. I love nutella and waffles are great so why not put them together. We based our waffles on this recipe. I used the Bisquick recipe for waffles, trading the vegetable oil for butter and adding the vanilla, cocoa powder, and nutella.

All in all great waffles! I love adding things to waffles that make them a little sweet so we don't feel the need to add syrup.

Happy Crafting!

Chai Time

Another kitchen adventure with my good friend Tamara (if you click on her name it will take you to her blog. You should totally check it out since she is AMAZING!) Tamara and I seem to find strength in each other when trying out new recipes that we find to be a bit daunting as well as life's journey. We've known each other since we were kids and even though we life took us in separate directions for a bit I am very glad that life has brought us back together!

What better way to spend a morning then with a good friend making chai syrup! For those of you who don't know what chai is it's tea! I didn't write down the recipe we used but I found a similar one online here. We doubled the recipe so that we both would have chai syrup.

Our ingredients

Boil all dry ingredients

with cinnamon sticks broken into pieces.

After mixture has boiled add tea bags for about 10 minutes.

Remove teabags and strain (saving the liquid and returning it back to the pot and back on the stove).

Add honey and brown sugar and bring to a boil. Then add vanilla and let boil again.

Let syrup cool and funnel into your chosen container.

Mix 2-4 tablespoons into warm milk and enjoy!

Happy crafting!

A Is For...

Apple butter! One of my patient's kindly shared apples from his trees with us this week. My first thought was that I should make apple butter and my second thought was but I've never made apple butter. On my day off yesterday I decided it was now or never! So I called up a good friend of mine to find out if she was up for a  cooking adventure. You can find the recipe we used here (we reduced it greatly).

The recipe cut down:

-15 small apples

-1 bottle apple cider (I used white grape cider since I had it on hand.)

-1 1/2 cups honey

-1 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

-1 3/4 tsp ground cloves

First peel, core, and chop the apples.

Boil the apples in the cider until they are soft and tender.

Stirring regularly.

When apples are soft mash with a potato masher.

Spoon mashed apples into food processor until it's smooth.

Now that the apples is smooth put back into pot.

And add spices and honey.

Stir constantly so that the apple butter doesn't stick to the pot and burn.
Simmer on low heat for 1 1/2 hours until apple butter has thickened.

Ladle apple butter into canning jars.
If you'll use it soon you can just add the lid and refrigerate
or use canning methods to seal jars.

All in all a great morning spent with a dear friend and a jar full of yumminess to take home too! It was great this morning on my homemade bread. To make this delicious duo you can find my bread recipe here.

Happy Crafting!

Poached eggs

Saturday morning I was feeling kitchen crafty and decided to make eggs benedict for breakfast. I thought it would be the perfect breakfast since 1) I love eggs benedict 2) we had leftover ham from Easter 3) I felt adventurous. 

Making eggs benedict might not seem adventurous to most people but it is for me! Mainly because I had never poached an egg. To remedy that I read up online how to poach eggs. It seemed simple enough: simmer water in pan, swirl water with spatula and gently drop in egg. Well apparently that is to difficult because I ended up with chunky egg water. For my own ego I won't be sharing pictures of my screw up. I ruined two eggs this way.

While searching for how to poach eggs I came across a woman who poaches her eggs in the microwave. While at first that didn't sound appealing to me I figured it should be simple enough and we could still have breakfast as planned! Thankfully it worked! The only downside is that I like my eggs lightly poached so that the yolk is still runny and I couldn't achieve that in the microwave.

Breakfast was delicious and almost all of the leftover ham was used!