And there was ham for days

I love Easter dinner. It is easy to make, delicious and the leftovers last for days.  I always make a baked ham, scalloped potatoes, asparagus and lemon meringue pie for dessert. This year I tried the Silver Palate Baked Ham with Glazed Apricots for the first time.  It was simple to put together.  The ham is smeared with Dijon mustard and then whole cloves are pressed into the ham. Apple juice is added to the pan and you bake it for an hour and a half and then attach Madeira marinated apricots to the ham to serve. Recipe here.

Even the smallest ham seems to leave endless leftovers.  We ate leftover ham for two days and then ham quiche for two days and of course ham sandwiches every day. I realized after five days of ham why I only make it once a year.  I can’t face another piece of ham until next April.

I also recently tried Ellen’s Apple Tart from the Silver Palate.  It was unusual to make in that you caramelize sugar in a cast iron pan and then place syrup-poached apples on top and finally cover the pan with puff pastry.  It is baked in the oven and then turned out onto a serving platter.  Kind of like a pie version of upside down cake. I really liked the flavour of the tart with the caramel sauce and the poached apples drizzled with a brandy sauce. It had a much more intense flavour than an apple pie. The only thing I didn’t like is that it is hard to make it look attractive when you turn it out.  I found my pastry looked uneven but perhaps it is supposed to have a rustic charm. I took the tart to a dinner party where there were eight adults and seven children under the age of five. The adults ate the tart while the children ran around with ice cream cones and then at 7:15pm pretty well everyone was crying so we were home by 7:30pm. I kind of like the chaos that kids bring to dinner parties. I think somehow the food tastes better when you scarf it down while breaking up a toddler fight club.

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