I am the chairman of the Fellowship Committee, which is a euphemism for "he who gets to cook for us at church a lot and work his ass off in the process".
My tenure in this position is rapidly coming to a close, as I have been serving on Session (the church council) for almost 3 years - an entire term.
At any rate, I am tired and want to move on, but the last great major hurdle to leap over is the church Thanksgiving meal, which we're having tomorrow.
Mrs E and I ordered up a whole hog about a month ago or so, so I'm taking one of the hams (a big bastard at 17 lbs, btw) and have done a few things to it - brined it overnight (the brine is a mixture of kosher salt, brown sugar, mustard seed, red pepper flakes, bay leaves, and a cinnamon stick) and then started roasting it late this morning.
But not before preparing a rub, which is essentially a paste of EVOO, an entire bulb of garlic cloves, whole grain mustard (okay, I cheated and used Dijon), a large handful of Italian parsley, sage, salt and pepper; pulsing that in a food processor, then smearing that all over the ham.
In the bottom of the roaster went two large Spanish onions, cut in wedges, along with about 2 cups of apple cider.
The ham goes on the top of the onion/cider mixture and gets blasted in a 425 deg. oven for 30 minutes, before cranking down to 325 for probably 5 hours or so.
The last two hours of roasting, I take the half gallon of cider that I'd reduced down to about a pint (OMG, the apple flavor is enough to knock your socks off) and brush it on the nicely-developing ham.
The house smells heavenly at the moment.
While all that's going on, I made up two pounds of cranberry compote (the zest of 3 oranges and 3 lemons, along with their juice), a couple cups of sugar, a very nice healthy slug of Grand Marnier, simmered for a few minutes, then thickened with a cornstarch/water whitewash.
Next up is the cornbread stuffing. First a mirepoix of onions and celery, along with some Italian sausage, walnuts, dried cranberries, sage. That gets mixed with the cornbread, then soak it down with some chicken stock (not homemade).
That gets thrown in the oven later tonight.
Fellowship Hall is already set up. We're planning on 100 people. We've got the ham, and other people are bringing in 3 turkeys, mashers, some regular bread stuffing, and gravy which I'll probably finalize in the church kitchen. Most of the rest of the church is bringing in side dishes and desserts.
It will be good to get all this behind me.
