Italian salad greens with ham, apple, and roasted cranberries

Post Christmas I was suddenly ravenous for ham and raw greens, salad - anything but cookies, which seemed to have been my diet for two or three weeks.  I haunted the supermarket and came home with a fat slice of ham and Italian salad greens - baby kale, baby mizuna, baby arugula, and radicchio ( which I left out because I didn't feel it fit in)

I made a very nice little oregano salad dressing, and tested an idea for roasted cranberries.  You can use raw cranberries easily, simply sliced in half.  Nice, sour, crunchy, but I liked the idea of a sweet/sour, barely roasted berry.  I think it's a nice perky addition, but go with the raw if you prefer.

Such a nice lunch!  But..... then I discovered I had left my camera at my daughter's house on Christmas Day.  I scrambled and searched and found a 2008 Powershot and took these remarkably retro photos of that very delicious salad.  Oh, how cameras have changed!

For the greens:  

Arrange in a large salad bowl or platter

For the ham :

Slice strips of ham about 4-5 inches long, maybe 1/2 inch thick

Arrange on top of greens.

Sliced apple chunks:

Slice a Granny Smith apple into thick slices, removing the core.

Cut each slice in half and arrange on greens.

The oregano salad dressing:

3 T. red wine vinegar

3 T. California olive oil

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

1 heaping teaspoon dried oregano

kosher salt

freshly ground pepper

Drizzle on top of the greens as desired.

For the roasted cranberries:

Marinate whole raw cranberries in a small bowl with 2 tablespoons olive oil, and 2 tablespoons sugar for an hour.

Preheat oven to 350F.  

Spoon the raw cranberries onto a baking sheet covered with foil or parchment.

As soon as the oven is at 350F, turn off the oven.

Slide the cranberries into the turned off oven and let sit in oven for 25 minutes.

Remove, cool, and sprinkle on salad.

A very Happy New Year to you all - hug people (and pets) you love, and believe in the goodness.

easter day coca cola ham and creamy carrot cake

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On Easter Day eve, I had resigned myself to spending the next day noodling around in the garden, and missing my very busy darlings, when I got a call from my sweet friend, asking if she and her son could come visit. Thomas had asked if he could visit his “Tanta Katrina”, as usual, on Easter Day, no doubt with that carrot cake in mind – and that gorgeous Easter ham with the Southern-style Coca Cola glaze.
And let's not forget the egg-hunt!
What a blessed day it turned out to be, with the sun shining and the air soft and mild, lots of good eats, and a fairly polite egg hunt, with three boys aged 4, 7, and 12, all somewhat, sort of, allowing the youngest one first dibs on the eggs. And, as usual, the boys heaved a few eggs at the boulders, just because.
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To make the ham, I baked a 12 pound ham for 3 hours at 325F, then made the glaze:

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1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1 cup pineapple juice

2 T. red currant jelly

1 1/2 cups cranberry juice

1 20 oz. bottle of Coca Cola ( not diet)

8 whole cloves

Simmer all the ingredients until the sauce forms a sheet on a wooden spoon. Serve hot, alongside the Easter Ham, in a pitcher, along with roasted asparagus and smashed potatoes and fluffy green salad. I adapted the recipe from Steamy Kitchen's recipe, which was just too sweet.

I hope you had a wonderful Easter Day!