One of the most tender and juicy hams you can serve your guests this holiday season is just a click away. Honey Baked Hams are bone-in hams that have a sensational honey crust that produces a sweet taste throughout the meat. A must-have in many Southern households for the holidays, these hams are an ideal Thanksgiving turkey alternative. A variety of honey baked and glazed hams can be ordered online -- making both shopping and cooking easier for the busy host. Slashfood rounded up some of the top online sites for ordering honey baked ham this holiday season.
The HoneyBaked Ham Company offers whole and half honey-baked and glazed hams online. You can even order complete meals with side dishes like green bean casserole, potatoes au gratin and southern pecan pie.
Chicago's Allen Brothers, whose steaks are served in steakhouses like Morton's and at Lawry's the Prime Rib's four outposts, offers honey-glazed hams and ham dinners.
The Holiday Ham Company has whole and half-hams online, along with side dishes, seafood, turkey and steaks.
Smithfield Marketplace has a variety of hams in addition to its honey baked ham, including brown-sugar and wine-glazed hams.
Just as the nation's gourmands have reached consensus on the superiority of country ham (the traditionally dry-cured hind hog quarter considered by some to be the culinary equal of Italy's prosciutto), one leading exemplar of Southern dining has practically shunted the dish off its menu.
Country ham is still available at Dillard House, the venerable North Georgia boardinghouse that's been overfeeding diners since 1915, but it's no longer among the dozens of all-you-can-eat plates automatically placed on every table. In the culinary equivalent of appointing a new porcine first chair, the restaurant has put sugar-cured "city" ham on its default dish list.
"We still have the country ham in the back for the old-timers who ask for it," a server told us when we visited last month. "But most people today seem to like the sugar-cured."
They're cheesy, cheap and classic. What are talking about? Casseroles, of course! In this brand-new series food writer and blogger Emily Farris, author of "Casserole Crazy: Hot Stuff for Your Oven" crafts tasty new casseroles exclusively for Slashfood readers. Green Eggs and Ham is her premier dish -- just in time for Easter.
As a kid, I never understood why Easter dinner was called "dinner" if it happened at noon. Luckily, one of the great things about being an adult is that we can make our own rules and name our own meals. And because I still can't bring myself to call a meal that happens that early "dinner," this year I'm hosting Easter brunch.
Am I making a 10-pound ham and scrambling three-dozen eggs while my guests drink free-flowing mimosas? Nope, this thing is happening potluck style. Like most people I know, I can't afford to host lavish brunches (not to mention dinners!), but wanted my meal to incorporate the different elements of Easter and, well, be a little brunch-y. So green eggs and ham it was, with eggs, ham, spinach, biscuits and my favorite thing in the world: cheese.
After a bit of experimentation, I wound up with a sort-of upside-down quiche with a biscuit crust, and who wouldn't go crazy for that? Although it'd be a wonderful meal for Easter brunch or supper, it's also a great way to use up that leftover Easter ham. Regardless, it's the sort of thing that would make Dr. Seuss -- or the Easter Bunny -- proud.
It's so easy fall for a huge slab of pork at the store only to spend the next week trying to eat through the remains. Fortunately, the pig is designed for all-out deliciousness: Its fat can amp up a delicious borscht, its skin can be tucked into Sicilian Rollups or the meat can be transformed into one heck of a split-pea soup.
Split peas, the anti-heartburn pantry staple, have a very long history that extends well beyond Linda Blair's scary pea-soup spray in "The Exorcist." They're also one of the simplest meals out there to throw together. After the jump is a recipe for a super-easy, super-delicious split-pea soup recipe that just might inspire you to pick up a nice roast ham from the butcher more often. This technique delivers a creamy, rich broth and -- topped here with toasted pine nuts -- is a lime-green harbinger of spring.
Ever whip up a dish that's so madly yummy you wanna feed it to everyone you've ever met? This is one of those.
Yup, Easter's already hopped on by, but who says that's the only ham-appropriate occasion? We'd unexpectedly received a smoked, bone-in ten-pounder as lagniappe for being loyal grocery store shoppers, and while we were old hands at prepping its hard, salty country cousin, we'd never actually baked and glazed a city ham. We've long been inspired by Aretha Franklin's ginger ale doused Queen of Soul Ham and have heard tell of a Coca-Cola ham or two, though have never had the pleasure of sampling one.
A tad loath to leave the house and brave the holiday supermarket fray, we took stock of what was on hand. Diet drinks weren't gonna cut the mustard, husband would flip if we drained his precious Pepsi stash, tonic was a tad depressing, then lo and behold -- Cheerwine! We'd hauled back cases of the distinctive cherry soda when last we hit the Tarheel State, and had been holding out for a special occasion to dip into the stash.
Sure, it wasn't the cane sugar based Retro Cheerwine (which we can't find to save our lives!), but it kept the ham miraculously moist through the initial bake and cooked down into a luscious, fruity glaze, which balanced quite well with the ham's salt, a kiss of bourbon, a quick blaze of mustard and the deep, dark tang of pomegranate molasses.
Can't find Cheerwine in your neck of the woods? Swap in a full-sugar dark cherry soda like Stewart's Black Cherry Wishniak, Boylan's Black Cherry or Jones' Cherry. Cheers!
We can only imagine it wasn't just us having a culinarily significant weekend, what with the late-breaking Seders and Easter feasting. Sure, Monday drudgery is upon us, but howzabout dishing up your biggest cooking tales of the past few days?
We'll go first. 'Round these parts, we rustled up our very first Sweet Potato Kugel (Elijah even asked for seconds), braised and glazed an Easter ham in Cheerwine cherry soda, bourbon and pomegranate molasses, and shook up a few Ramos Gin Fizzes from all the extra eggs lying about. Somehow, it all managed to coexist quite peacefully in both our hearts and digestive systems, and while we didn't get 'round to sourcing the lambs' blood for the Icelandic Slatur we've been double-dog-dared to make, there's always next weekend.
For now, we're hungry for your tales of kitchen woes and triumps. Didja best a crust that's been troubling you, or experiment with an unfamiliar veggie? Dish 'em up in the comments below.
It would seem that providence has brought me a country ham. Upon reading a Facebook posting of mine last night, crowing about (okay, showing off), my haul of whole hog BBQ from Ed Mitchell's The Pit in Raleigh, a dear pal inquired as to the possibility of my acquiring a ham for him while I was still in North Carolina. My husband Douglas and I were planning hitting the road at an unholy hour this morning, so I gave a Chapel Hill Harris Teeter the ol' Tarheel try 'round about midnight. Plenty of Harris' She Crab soup, Duke's mayo, Cheerwine and Peanut Butter Moon Pies to be had, but not so much with the artisanal pig products. Well shoot! I'd tried.
Turn off your spam-blockers and get ready for an avalanche of salty, eraser-colored porktastic goodness. The other day, I wrote about how Spam is ramping up production to meet recession-fueled demand. Some of you passionately defended the oft-ridiculed meat product; others requested Spam recipes. So I rounded up a few of the best Spam-cooking sites, just for you.
First, check out the aptly named spamrecipes.net, which gives Spam a vaguely International makeover with recipes like Spam frittata, Spam carbonara and Cantonese Spam. Spam's own website has recipes from its test kitchen as well as contributions from fans like Spam salad cones and Maui Spam muffins. Just Recipes has 359 Spam recipes, from A Good Hot (Spam) Sandwich to Zippy Spam and Pesto Biscuits.
As for me, I still favor the classic Southern Spam sandwich: A thick slab of skillet-fried Spam between two slices of Duke's mayonnaise-slathered Wonder Bread with a sliced summer tomato.
From 60 Ways to Serve Ham (1930), Armour and Company
I'm interrupting the semi-regularly scheduled Midnight Sausage series to share molded food images and recipes from my personal collection of early-to-mid 20th century cookbooks. There will be aspic. There will be mousse. There will be various gelatins. All will be semi-solid and of debatable degrees of edibility.
Please feel free to shimmy and shake your way to the comments section to share your very own magical, masticable molds of yore.
One of the things I enjoy most about eating pork is tasting the different breed varieties. For almost two years, I have been obsessed with Berkshire ham. It's like no other ham I have ever eaten before. That was until I tried Red Wattle ham.
Red Wattle ham is by far the most juicy, tender, and succulent ham. After taking a bite of this mouthwatering meat, a billion different recipe ideas starting going off in my mind. For starters, this would be great ham to use in a Cuban sandwich.
Red Wattle is one out of the many dozens of pig varieties in the United States that are at risk of becoming extinct due to industrial agriculture. Farmers stopped breeding the different varieties, because customers stopped buying them. The only way to prevent Red Wattle from extinction is to support the farmers that still breed them. Read on to find out Red Wattle's origin, history, and where you can purchase it.
During my layover in Paris, I entered what appeared to be a high-end deli. These high-end delis appear all over Paris. They are called charcuteries. The French charcuteries are one-of-a-kind. At first, when I entered Jeusselin, a charcuterie in the 7th arrondissement in Paris, I was stunned by the gorgeous displays of the prepared delicacies, such as white asparagus, tête de veau (calf's head), saucissons (French sausages) and jambons (French hams). Every aspect of the shop seems artistically calculated. The people who work at charcuteries such as Jeusselin are not simply seen as charcutiers (pork butchers), but also as traiteurs (caterers), so the presentation of every food is taken seriously.
But, it's not just the food displays that make the French charcuterie unique at Jeusselin. It's also the way the traiteurs cure their meats. In fact, the word "traiteur" means a cook-caterer. They are chefs in their own right. The history of the traiteur goes much further back in time before restaurants existed. In France, up until the eighteenth century, these master cooks would serve meals to large parties. So, it's not surprising that when restaurants (as opposed to long-existing cafes and taverns) sprang up for the first time all over Paris in the 1700s, traiteurs felt threatened and brought legal charges against some of them. In other words, they were as well-respected as today's star chefs.
The traiteurs at Jeusselin are proud of their work and excited to share their knowledge with their customers. They have been at 37 rue Cler since 1937. During my visit to the shop last week, the current owners of Jeusselin were eager to show me photos of their family members who started the business.
Want to see how far American cuisine has come in the past 40 years? Check out the Mid-Century Supper Club on Flickr, where members lovingly recreate heinous 50s and 60s dishes like hot dogs suspended in aspic and olive-studded sandwich loaf. Dishes are served in retro crockery; some are even posed in front of their inspirations, photos from vintage cookbooks and 1962 issues of Good Housekeeping.
I am particularly fond of the higher-concept items, such as the "Three Men in a Boat" - baked potato boats with button mushroom sailors and American cheese sails - or the banana "airplane" - a banana with chocolate wafer wings, flying through whipped cream clouds. Time to tie on an apron and bust out the Jello.
No matter how you feel about El Barbudo (the bearded one), who resigned from the Cuban presidency today after nearly 50 years in power, you can probably agree with this: Cuban sandwiches are awesome.
Also known as the Cubano or medianoche, the sandwich is layered affair of ham, sliced roast pork, cheese pickles and mustard on sweet, submarine-like rolls. Cuban sandwiches were likely invented not in Havana, but by immigrants in South Florida, where many Cubans settled after the Revolution. They're basically a jazzed-up version of the ham and cheese sandwiches eaten by Cuban workers across the island for centuries.
These sandwiches can be served hot and gooey from a sandwich press (my fave), or cold like an ordinary sub. Try one of these for lunch with a mango batido (thin fruit milkshake) and dream of palm trees and vintage Cadillacs.
Yesterday I had a friend and her 18-month-old over for lunch. I put together an eclectic assortment of food including some smoked turkey and white bean soup, a couple hunks of cheese, beet salad, applesauce, a friend's homemade pickles and some sliced apples. My only problem was I was severely lacking the bread department. We ended up making do with some toasted baguette rounds that I realized later were starting to get moldy.
I had wanted to make some savory muffins, but I don't have a go-to recipe for that particular item and I ran out of time anyway. However, I think I may have stumbled across a winner to hold onto for next time I need to quickly supplement my bread supply. Just yesterday Jeanne of the blog Cook Sister! posting a yummy looking recipe for Ham, Cheese and Paprika muffins. Them look to be pretty easy and the picture makes me want to drool (always a good sign).
If anyone else has favorite recipe for savory muffins, let me know!
No matter how you feel about El Barbudo (the bearded one), who 
Yesterday I had a friend and her 18-month-old over for lunch. I put together an eclectic assortment of food including some smoked turkey and white bean soup, a couple hunks of cheese, beet salad, applesauce, a friend's homemade pickles and some sliced apples. My only problem was I was severely lacking the bread department. We ended up making do with some toasted baguette rounds that I realized later were starting to get moldy. 
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