Christmas at Almost Heaven South

Since we were leaving two days after Christmas and we were in a bah humbug frame of mind, we did zero decorating for Christmas except for the pine center piece and Poincettia that we received as gifts.  But Bev did want to make pully-ham and invite a few friends to drop by for drinks, ham sandwiches, and a visit.

The recipe came from a co-worker about 40 years ago and is pretty complicated, so I’ll go slow.

Ingredients:

1 ea    Ham, cured and cooked

24 oz  Good beer (I used Yuengling)

Directions:

Put ham and beer in a covered roaster and cook at 250F 10-12 hours.  Baste once/hr last four hours.

As you can see, it’s called pully-ham because it is too tender to slice and chunks are just pulled off of it.  This is after a person or two had attacked it.

We sided it with a big batch of potato salad so we would have it and the ham as leftovers for our impending RV trip.  The table was also laden with condiments, including naturally spicy homemade mustard, slider rolls, four cheeses, olives and pickles, fruit, cheese ball, and sweets.  The idea was for guests to stop by and visit for a while and just graze while here – seems like every time I saw one friend, she had a piece of ham in her hand so I know she liked it.

Our potato salad recipe is very simple but what I grew up with and still my favorite:

Ingredients:

5 lb. waxy potatoes

Half of a very large onion, finely diced

8 eggs, hard boiled

3 stalks celery, finely diced

1 cup Mayo (more or less to taste)

2-3 Tbsp. mustard (more or less to taste)

S&P to taste

Directions:

1. Peel and dice potatoes to desired size and boil until just tender

2. Boil eggs, peel, and dice to desired size

3. Dice onion and celery pretty small

4. While the potatoes are still warm, mix everything together

5. Let it set a couple of hours un-refrigerated until serving time so the flavors can marry

All of the dozen guests seemed to have a very good time and the ham got rave reviews – it is great for an open house as it requires no attention once it’s on the table and it is still very good and continues to pull easily as it cools.

A Publix Water Roll with a pile of pully ham, a slice of Guggisberg Baby Swiss Cheese, and a slather of the spicy mustard is all that I needed for an outstanding sandwich.  This mild cheese was invented by Alfred Guggisberg in Ohio Amish Country in the mid 60's to satisfy the taste of some Americans who thought Emmental was a bit strong.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

12/25/14 event date