Crockpot Melt in Your Mouth Ham

Ingredients

  • 8 to 10 pound spiral ham
  • ¼ cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 cup brown sugar, packed
  • 1 (20 oz) can pineapple slices, drained, reserve the juice
  • 2 tablespoons honey
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cloves

Instructions

  • Coat inside of crockpot with non-stick cooking spray. Place ham, cut side down into crockpot.
  • Combine melted butter, brown sugar, honey and cloves until a paste forms. Cover ham with brown sugar mixture gently pushing mixture into ham. Add pineapple slices on top of ham, secure with toothpicks if necessary.
  • Pour reserved pineapple juice over ham.
  • Add lid to crockpot if possible, if the lid doesn’t fit, cover tightly with foil. Cook on low for 3-4 hours or until an internal temperature of 145°F is reaches.
  • Baste with juice and let ham rest for 10 minutes before serving. Store any leftovers in refrigerator in airtight container

Notes

Add Crispy Edges to Ham

  1. Heat the broiler on your oven.
  2. Remove ham from crockpot and place on an oven safe dish or on a large cookie sheet. 
  3. Press additional brown sugar onto the edges of the ham. 
  4. Broil for about a minute or two, watching very closely. You just want the edges to start bubbling and crystallizing the brown sugar! 
  5. Remove from oven and serve immediately! 

How to Store Ham

Keep leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator. They should last for up to a week in there.

How to Reheat Ham

You can just reheat slices of ham in the microwave! If you want, you can also reheat your ham in a baking dish in the oven for 10-15 minutes (or until warmed through), but the microwave should work just fine.

How to Freeze Ham

You can also freeze any leftover ham in an airtight container for a month or so. Be sure to let it thaw in the fridge before reheating!

Best Smoked Turkey in a Big Green Egg Smoker

Ingredients

Brine

  • 2 gallons water
  • 1 cup salt
  • 1 cup sugar
  • ¼ cup Creole Seasoning
  • Fresh herb bundle of Sage, Rosemary, Thyme
  • 2 Lemons halved
  • 2 Bay Leaves
  • 4-5 Garlic Cloves smashed
  • 1 TBS Whole Black Pepper Corns
  • 2 Small Onions quartered

Instructions

Recommendation, use 2 small 12-14lb turkey’s instead of one big 20+lb turkey. You get a more even cook and meat is juicer.

Day 7 – the THAW 

4-5 days before you plan on cooking, pull turkey out of freezer and put in fridge.

Day 3 – Make the BRINE

By this point Turkey should be fully defrosted.  If not, consider cold water bath for turkey. Place frozen turkey in cold water and change water every 30-45min to maintain turkey temp below 40 degrees.  Anything more bacteria wakes up and you could get some sick guests.  Never ever use hot water or hair dryer or anything like that to defrost turkey. It will get you and your guests sick

Make brine by combining the ingredients. First add 1 gallons of water to a large pot (like a stew pot) then add 1 cup salt and 1 cup sugar and bring to a boil to help dissolve the salt and sugar. Then either turn down heat to a simmer or just turn off and add remaining ingredients.

  • ¼ cup Creole Seasoning
  • Fresh herb bundle of Sage, Rosemary, Thyme
  • 2 Lemons halved
  • 2 Bay Leaves
  • 4-5 Garlic Cloves smashed
  • 1 TBS Whole Black Pepper Corns
  • 2 Small Onions quartered

Put the whole pot in the fridge for 24hours.

Day 2 – Turkey in BRINE

Put turkey over sink and clean it out, rinse and let drip dry a bit then come and dap with a paper towel to remove any extra water.

Get one of those big garment zip lock bags (I believe they are garment bags you can find at your hardware store and rinse out).

Put the bag in a cooler, then put the clean turkey in the bag then pour the brine in the bag.  Now place ice in the cooler to keep it cool for 24hours.

Day 1 – Grillin Time

Get your BGE with about 3-4 wood chunks (pecan, cherry, hickory or whatever you like) up between 275-300.

While the grill is coming up to temp and stablizing, pull the turkey out of the bag in the cooler and put over the sink and rinse the brine off the turkey and pat dry with some paper towels

Season with A.P (All Purpose Seasoning) and a Creole Seasoning.

Inject in breast and thighs

Spray with Canoloa oil

Place on BGE and respray every hour with canola oil

Will probably take roughly 3 hours