Mustard and Rosemary Baked Ham

Happy 2023. We started our New Year with the most delicious dinner on New Year's Day at our house watching the Seahawk football game (they won- Go Hawks!) and then we had a few people over for dinner. It turned out to be a really fun day and a good opportunity for me to cook up this ham that we get every year from a vendor that Bruce works with. It's an Amana Ham from Iowa. Amana is a quaint German town in Iowa that we visited many times when we lived in Iowa in the 80's. Bruce had a friend from college who was from Amana and his family owned the restaurant in town called the Ronneburg Restaurant that is still there. We had many good meals and lots of fun memories with the Oehler family at that restuarant. Now, we still get a taste of Amana every year with this ham that we receive. I try to cook it when we will have a lot of people over. In past years, we've served it for our Super Bowl parties that we would host before the pandemic. We're not sure when we will start that back up again. So, this year we had about 10 people over on New Year's Day to help us eat our Amana ham. Nick went to the game with a friend and they returned afterwards for dinner when the rest of our guests arrived.

This meal was very similar to Christmas Day, actually. I made my Make-Ahead Creamy Mashed Potatoes, Rhodes Frozen Rolls, green beans, Quinoa Edamame Salad, roasted sweet potatoes and some fresh pineapple. It was really quite simple but very satisfying.

Yesterday, I made Split Pea Soup with the ham bone and it tasted so good. After a busy holiday season of eating holiday foods, soup and salads are now foods we crave to get back to a normal routine. This ham recipe is from Hannah Freese, RD so it works right in with her eating plan. This whole meal followed her plan except for the rolls and mashed potatoes. But Hannah says to follow the plan 80% of the time and you can go off of it 20%. I'm pretty sure I went off of it more than 20% during the holidays but as long as I stay active and do my exercises, I still feel really good. Now that the holidays are behind us, I'm back to her eating plan once again. (I made the split pea soup without potatoes which is easy enough to do since her plan avoids "white" carbs). We had the grandkids spend the night for a few days after New Year's so the next day went down to Alki Beach where we spotted some orca whales swimming by. It was such a thrill seeing them and I felt like it was an omen for the year ahead.

It was such a peaceful and serene moment seeing them swim by. Those orcas have a real affect on people when you see them and you hear about it all the time. It's like you get a real deep connection with nature and an overwhelming sense of calmness. And I felt just that. What will 2023 bring for us? I hope the coming year will bring a sense of calm and peace, a feeling of being one with nature to all our lives like with the sighting of the orcas. I do believe seeing them on this day was an omen. Happy New Year.

Makes 10 serving

1 cup stone-ground mustard

1/2 cup avocado mayonnaise

2 Tbsp. garlic, minced

2 Tbsp. chopped, fresh rosemary

1 tsp. ground pepper, to taste

8 lbs. ham, bone-in (may be spiral cut or not)

1. Combine mustard, mayonnaise, garlic, rosemary and pepper in a small bowl and mix.

2. Place ham in a roasting pan fat side up. Slather generously with your mustard mixture. Pour about 1/2 cup of water into the bottom of the pan and place in a preheated 325 degree oven.

3. Bake for about 15 minutes per lb. uncovered.

4. Let rest for 10 minutes before cutting.

Meatloaf by Mark Bittman

Once again, I turned on the television yesterday and saw that Mark Bittman was on the Today show and was making his version of meatloaf . This must be meatloaf season. It was surprisingly similar to the Pioneer Woman's version who was also recently on. I was a little surprised of his version because Mark Bittman is into healthy eating and has lost a lot of weight and improved his health by changing his diet which he writes about in his book, Food Matters . His meatloaf recipe also included bacon and cheese! I must be doing something wrong. The thing to remember, which he writes about in his book, is that you can eat healthy without going extreme or changing your whole life. If you don't know who Mark Bittman is, he is a food writer and a four star chef with multiple cookbooks who loves to eat but changed his food philosophy to improve his health. He tells his story in Food Matters and provides ...

Trader Joe's Gluten-Free Oatmeal, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies

I don't have very many gluten-free cookies on my blog because quite frankly, I usually don't like gluten-free. But occasionally, I do find a good recipe and this is one that is from the back of the Trader Joe's oatmeal and it's a good one. My friend brought some over to our house last weekend when Nick and family were here for our birthday celebrations and we all loved them. My friend lives a few blocks away and we walk the neighborhood together on weekends. We can easily go 5 miles in no time, talking non-stop. She loves exploring our neighborhood as much as I do and we discover so many favorite little spots. We even found a property with a horse (or more like a pony, I should say.) The views are always quite lovely, too. Bruce and I had our thirty-ninth wedding anniversary on July 18th and I made a point of walking past the house where we had our wedding reception. I told my friend, "Thirty-nine years ago today, t...

Waking Up in Vegas

and just like that...we were Waking Up in Vegas. Just like the Katy Perry song. We went to her 78th performance which was her second-to-last Las Vegas residency show entitled "Play". That was perfect for us because we went to Vegas simply to play. Her concert was a great finale for us because it was high energy and full of silliness, just the way Katy Perry is. And we were feeling it after three nights in Las Vegas. "Get up, and shake the gutter off your clothes now, That's what you get for waking up in Vegas". Here's what she said about her show: "I created this show after the birth of my daughter, Daisy Dove. When I met her, it was like all the love I was ever searching for finally showed up. This show is for everyone’s inner child and for the hope that maybe if we could all see life through the eyes of a child, we would be free. Because never forget, love is and will always be the key,” she said. We went to Vegas spur of the moment because Br...

Sylvia's Scenario

Search This Blog