Crock pot Ham!

I'm not sure why I've never thought this was possible before, but now that I know...

I'm not sure who gifted us with the 7lb ham we've had in the fridge for a while, but I'm grateful. It was precooked, so it didn't need a ton of cooking time but ham still takes some planning. I usually make some kind of brown sugar glaze and then reglaze half way through the cooking process. Even then, ham can end up being dry if you're not careful. The crock pot seemed like an excellent way to remedy that.

The recipe I found said to cook it on low for 4 hours. These were instructions for a 6-8lb ham. Obviously, you could use a meat thermometer to ensure it was cooked to your liking. Being that this ham was already cooked, I really just needed it warmed to my liking. I found this brandy brown sugar glazed ham recipe from A Spicy Perspective. I'm not really an alcohol drinker (unless it's wine) but the recipe said you could sub juice so that's what I did. We don't always have juice but this week we have some pineapple orange juice, so that's what I used. I also used regular ground  mustard, because that's what I had, and I tend to not like overly mustardy things so I used half as much. I found this to be amazingly good. Different than your normal brown sugared ham, but different in a really good way. My husband wasn't thrilled, he doesn't seem to like cumin unless it's Mexican food, I know, I pity him too, but he still ate it. It's also the first time I've used the grinding function on my blender. I used fresh ground coriander. Love the way it smells. I omitted the allspice, because I didn't have any.

I wondered what kind of crust we'd get on the ham in the crock pot, but to my surprise it browned very nicely. All in all, I'm quite sure we'll use this method again. It's the perfect way to have Easter dinner done right after church let's out without worrying about burning the house down!

6-8 lb ham

1 c brown sugar

1/2 c juice (apple, orange, mixed)

1 T ground mustard

1 T cornstarch

1 T cumin

1 T ground coriander

1/2 t cayenne pepper

2 t seasoned salt

Mix all the dry ingredients up and add your juice. Stir it well to make sure you've gotten all the brown sugar declumped. Score the ham about 1/4 inch deep. Rub about half the glaze all over the ham. I put the ham in the crock pot cut side down. Really, it was because that's how it fit best, but I'll do it again next time as well because I then poured the rest of the glaze over the ham. You could save the rest and do it half way through the cooking process, but I decided not to do that because with slow cookers you really want to leave the lid on to keep the heat in. Let it cook on low 4-5 hours. You could leave it longer for a larger ham. 

So good folks!