Slow Cooked Spiced Ham

It might seem like a bit of an extravagance to buy a ham in January, but you can get an awful lot of eating out of a large ham like this eating it sliced, warm and cold, then stretching the rest into several meals using rice, pasta, quiche, bakes, pies and pasties.

Adding some spices and citrus fruit to the cooking liquid just adds a little extra flavour to the ham.  It's not overpowering and is more obvious in the cold ham than when it is served warm.

Slow Cooked Spiced Ham
1 ham or gammon joint (2.5 kilos)
1 cinnamon stick
2 star anise
3 all spice berries
1/2 lemon
1/2 orange
1 litre of liquid (you can use apple juice, cider, white wine or water or a combination)

Place all the ingredients in your Slow Cooker or Crockpot,  put on the lid and cook on low for 4-5 hours.

Farmersgirl Tips

• If you are using a smaller gammon joint, simply reduce the liquid, spices and cooking time, it's a really that simple.
• If you want to glaze your ham, remove the rind, then using a sharp knife, make a criss cross pattern in the fat.  Make a mixture of  50g dark brown sugar and 1 tsp dried mustard powder and rub into the fat.  Heat the oven to 180C and bake until the rind is bubbling about 10-12 minutes.  I would recommend lining your tin with foil as the sugar mixture is really sticky and difficult to remove.

• 

This is my entry for my #SlowCookedChallenge, the theme for January is CITRUS, why not join me?

Labels: all spice, bacon, Cinnamon, crockpot, Gammon, ham, lemon, orange, Slow Cooked Challenge, slow cooker, spice, star anise

posted by Janice @ 19:30 10 Comments

Ham in Ginger Beer - The May/June Slow Cooker Challenge

After relying on my Slow Cooker for three months, once I got my oven back, I rather neglected the Slow Cooker.  However, today I was getting my hair coloured and cut, plus doing a few bits of shopping in town, which meant I would be out from 10am until about 3.30pm.  This is when the Slow Cooker really comes into it's own.

Slow Cookers are brilliant for cooking gammon joints, the slow cooking makes the ham really tender and it's such a simple dish to make.


Slow Cooker Ham
750g-1.5kg ham or gammon joint
10 black peppercorns
1 tbsp honey
330ml Crabbies Alcoholic Ginger Beer, cider or apple juice
500ml boiling water

1. Place a piece of foil in the bottom of your slow cooker, this will help you lift the ham out when it is cooked.
2. Place the ham in the slow cooker and add the peppercorns.
3. Pour over the bottle of Crabbies Alcoholic Ginger Beer.
4. Mix the honey with the boiling water and pour over the ham.
5. Place the lid on the slow cooker and cook on Low for 8-10 hours or on HIGH for 5-6 hours.
6. When the cooking time is up, lift the ham from the cooker and drain before slicing.
7. Serve hot or cold. 

 I served the ham with boiled new potatoes, cauliflower and parsley sauce.  I added a little of the cooking liquor to the sauce which added a lovely sweetness with just a hint of ginger. We also had the ham cold with salad and the flavour of the Alcoholic Ginger Beer came through more strongly in the ham slices.  I managed to make it stretch to three meals for three adults, with reasonable portions, so really good value all round.



It's an OPEN themed challenge this month, so feel free to enter ANY recipe cooked in a Slow Cooker or Crockpot, just follow the rules below:

• Make your recipe in your Slow Cooker and post a photograph and the recipe, or a link to a recipe, on your blog
• Link to Farmersgirl Kitchen
• Use the Slow Cooker Challenge logo in your post
• If you use twitter, tweet your post with @FarmersgirlCook and #SlowCookerChallenge and I will re-tweet it to my followers AND post your post your pictures on a dedicated Pinterest board.

Rules:

• Please do not publish recipes from cookbooks on your blog without permission, they are copyright.
• If you are using recipes from another website, please link to the recipe on the website rather than publishing the recipe. 
• You can re post previous recipes on your blog, but please add the Slow Cooker Challenge Logo and link.
• One entry per blog.
• Recipes must be added to the linky by the 28th of each month.

As I will not be available to round up the challenge at the end of May, I am running this challenge over two months. The Challenge will end 28TH JUNE, 2014. 
 

Labels: Crabbies Alcoholic Ginger Beer, Gammon, ham, Slow Cooker Challenge

posted by Janice @ 20:51 7 Comments

Roasted Broccoli for Random Recipes #22

It's Random Recipe time again and this month Dom at Belleau Kitchen has challenged us  as follows:  "refer to your birthday date as the number you should use to randomly pick your book... for example, my birthday is the 24th September and so I have randomly chosen the 24th book on my bookshelf counting from right to left...  it doesn't really get more tenuous or random than this does it but it's nice to have a little theming every month don't you think?"


 
I'm not giving anything away about my birthday, you'll just have to believe me when I tell you that I followed the instructions and, while Dom picked out Nigella, I got Delia!  Isn't it interesting that these two iconic women cooks are known by their first names.  You would never just refer to Nigel (Slater) or Hugh (Fearnley-Whittingstall), maybe Jamie comes close but he is still Jamie Oliver, anyway I digress, on with the challenge.



It was the Winter Collection which came up as my Random Recipe book, which was helpful, it being winter!  I opened the book randomly as instructed and had a choice of Sauteed Carmelised Fennel or Oven Roasted Cauliflower an Broccoli with Garlic and Coriander, I didn't have any Fennel or Cauliflower, but I did have a head of Broccoli.


The delightful Delia, has kindly posted the recipe on her website, so you can click through the link if you would like to make Oven Roasted Cauliflower and Broccoli with Garlic and Coriander

I can't say I was terribly impressed by this recipe.  The coriander and garlic flavour was really good, but the broccoli was still a bit too hard, if I'd left it in the oven any longer it would have burnt.  I think if I made it again I would blanch the broccoli for a few minutes before roasting.

I served the broccoli with a homemade turkey and ham pie.

Labels: Broccoli, coriander, Delia, Delia Smith, garlic, ham, Random Recipes, Turkey, turkey and ham pie, Winter Collection

posted by Janice @ 10:00 7 Comments

Ham Pate for lunch

I had some baked ham left over so thought I'd make it into a pate for sandwiches and other snacks.

Manuka Honey with Lemon

Ham Pate

You need twice as much ham as you do cottage cheese, and can add whatever flavourings suit you.
600g baked or boiled ham, diced
300g cottage cheese
1 tbsp whipping cream (optional)
1 tsp dijon mustard
1 tsp  New Zealand Honey Co, Manuka Honey with Lemon (or other honey)

Whizz the ham in the food processer until chopped small, add the other ingredients and whizz until mixed.

Pack into a dish or box and cover.

I topped a baked potato with some of the ham pate and served with a simple tomato and basil salad.  It's a great way to use up left over ham it also extends it much further than serving it sliced.

Labels: Baked Potato, cottage cheese, food processor, ham, leftovers, lunch, Manuka Honey, pate, sandwiches

posted by Janice @ 22:21 4 Comments

Ham and Parsley Puff Pie

Remember I kept back half the ham from my 'overspilling casserole'?  Well, I made it into a pie.




I served it with  roast potatoes, carrots dressed with butter and honey.  I probably should have used either the parsley or the mustard rather than both as the flavours were fighting each other.  Otherwise, it was very delicious.

Labels: ham, Pie, puff pastry, white sauce

posted by Janice @ 20:56 11 Comments

Bacon or Ham Stewpot

The recipe states that you should remove the rind and cut up your ham into cubes, but as I wanted to use it for other things,  I cooked it, covered in water, for 20 minutes in the pressure cooker until it was just tender.  I kept the ham stock to make soup later.

6. Serve with a green vegetable.

As I wasn't using the cubed bacon but had the whole joint in the pot, so once it was cooked I took out the bacon joint, halved it and cut half into cubes then stirred them back into the vegetable mixture.


This makes a huge pot of delicious, filling and warming food, which would feed 6-8 people.  It would be ideal for a Halloween or Bonfire Party and, even better,  I still have half the ham which I'm making into a pie and will feature in another post soon!

Labels: bacon, Bookmarked Recipes, carrots, casserole, Gammon, ham, haricot beans, Le Creuset, potato, stewpot, Vegetables, vegetarian

posted by Janice @ 16:16 13 Comments

Lovely Leftovers - Christmas Quiche

Labels: Christmas, ham, quiche, Turkey

posted by Janice @ 18:24 1 Comments

The feast before the feast

Every year, just before Christmas, we invite my husband's cousins over for lunch. It is traditional for us to have a cold buffet style lunch, but we sit at the table to eat it! Here is my dining room ready for the food. We started with Spiced Parsnip Soup which drew very favourable comments, but I forgot to take a photo!

We love to eat pickles with the cold meat, pickled onions, gherkins and beetroot. In the centre of the dish is the homemade cranberry relish which was delicious.
I made a few things from Delia Smith's Happy Christmas book, this is the Spiced Brown Rice Salad which was really tasty with a mild curry flavour and lots of bits of veg, nuts and seeds mixed through.
The pasta salad is simply pasta, sweetcorn and some cheese chopped into little cubes, dressed with mayonnaise.
This is Delia's Christmas Coleslaw which includes celeriac and an amazing dressing made with sour cream and garlic amongst other things. I wouldn't say I could taste the celeriac but the whole dish had a great overall flavour. I didn't get a photo but the whole thing was served with a green salad and roast potatoes.
I usually make a 'real' trifle which means no jelly (jello), just sponge soaked with alcohol, in this case cherry brandy, raspberries, topped with real egg custard and then cream and decorated with toasted flaked almonds. Delia's verision of 'English Trifle' is pretty similar to the one I usually make BUT she makes the custard with double cream :o and I have to say, it was fantastic! I don't think I can go back to the one I usually make with full cream milk.
I also served Apple Pecan Cheesecake, which I've shown on my blog before. The recipe came from Judy's Kitchen and is now a favourite of mine.

I've been asked for the link to the Cheesecake recipe you can find it HERE

Labels: Cheesecake, Christmas, coleslaw, ham, pasta, salad, trifle

posted by Janice @ 19:51 12 Comments