Easter Ham Dinner

It was a very good Easter dinner and in fact every dish turned out just right. Tradition has our house having ham for Easter and we wanted a little left over ham for sandwiches, so I bought two 10 lb smoked ham shanks. I used Tony Chachere's Creaole marinade and used one whole jar to inject both hams. To use as little space as possible in the fridge I set them on the cut side and trimmed the wrap off two third the way down and trimmed the fat off then injected - any liquid ran down in the bottom of the original wrapping, then I wrapped in plastic wrap before refridgerating for 24 hrs. The cook was estimated to be roughly 3 hrs at 325 but I wanted them to have plenty of time to cool and needed the cooker freed up for our andouie and pineapple appetizers. Just before starting the hams to cook, I rubbed liberally with Slabs Birds n Bones and put them on. The night before we had already made a big bowl of Potato Salad (3 lbs of Potatoes), but there was still plenty left to get ready while the ham cooked. Sue always makes sure we have plenty of our garden green beans and corn so that made two of our side dishes. Everybody loves yeast rolls with this meal, so we had plenty of those and another side dish that has become very popular with our crown that we decided to include in the Easter dinner for the first time - Broccoli Casserole. We have one in the crowd that does not like pork of any kind, so I ran back to the office to get some of our vac sealed Brisket and I'm thinking I may have to replace the ham next year with a couple of briket as it seemed to be enjoyed as much as anything else. Someone brought deviled eggs and another a desert sandwich cookies. Almost forgot the Sweet Potato Casserole my Mom brought and the desert we made - Pretzel Strawberry Salad which is really a close cousin to a Lush type dish but the Pretzels take the place of the graham / crumb bottom layer and provides a nice crunch with just enough salt to make it noticeable and good. We love feeding the family but it must be an age thing because it does seem to take more and more out of us these days.

Tri Tip Birthday

It was suppose to be a great get together for by son's Dennis & Davids birthday (well me too since mine is only 4 days later) - BUT they both felt a little under-the-weather and had to cancel. "And here I thought, I was the old man the crowd." I'm sure all that driving for their out of town jobs each weekend had something to do with it. By the time we knew we had already marinated the Tri Tips so we went ahead with the entire cook. The pics below only show the smallest one which I cooked to 160+ and the largest which I cooked to 135. I shaved the rest for sandwiches.