Diabetic Coma Ham

When we got our bacon and hams back from the butcher the other day, Shawn left a HUGE ham out (about 18" long by about 4-5" thick) for me to "figure something out" to do with it. I have never cooked a ham nor have I crocked a ham.

Research tiiiiiiime!!!!

The most common element to cooking hams it seems, is brown sugar. Several recipes I saw called for brown sugar and pineapple juice, or brown sugar and coca-cola, or just brown sugar on it's own. I had been planning on making a Pear Chrisp and had some large cans (29oz each) of pears in the pantry (I didn't use the pears we canned ourselves because if it was any good I wanted to be able to give you a recipe you could shop for and "a jar of pears worth of juice" just isn't transferable) so I thought I might as well make the Pear Chrisp to go with the ham and use the pear juice along with the brown sugar. 

The result will probably put most diabetics into a coma, but here goes:

   Diabetic Coma Ham

     1 Bigass Ham
     Juice from 1 29oz Can of Pears

     2 C Brown Sugar

To gain perspective, that is a HUGE 7qt crock

Grease the crock!! You can use spray if you don't have Crisco. In this case I had both but I want the thicker coating the Crisco will provide.
 
I chose pear juice partly because it's the fruit juice I had on hand and partly because with all of that brown sugar I wanted something a little milder. I cannot fathom (yet) crocking meat without some sort of liquids; I have to steam the meat. Open the can of pears and drain the juice into the bottom of the crock. Set pears aside for Pear Chrisp.

Next we'll add some brown sugar. A Super Tip with brown sugar is to store it in a gallon sized resealable bag. This will keep it from drying out AND it's much easier to measure out what you need with less mess and no spoon to pack it in the measuring cup and no knife to level it off... just use your hand! Dip the measuring cup inside with one hand and on the outside of the bag use your other hand to pack the sugar into the cup and level it off and then reseal it. TADA!!!

Put 1 1/2 C of the brown sugar into the bottom of the crock with the juices and lightly stir.

Squeeze the ham into the crock. You may have to trim some of the fat off of it so that it'll fit.

Put some of the juice from the bottom on top of the ham and then rub on the remaining 1/2 C of brown sugar.

Cook on LOW for 6 hours.

I am going to flip the ham over when I get home from work.

I will post the recipe for Pear Chrisp when I make it and I'll have a link here.

I don't know if this ham will be good but if I don't post for a few days it's probably because I went into a coma!!!


**UPDATE** 12/17/2011 This ham turned out AMAZING!!! I'm not going to crock a whole ham any other way (well, if I'm keeping it a whole ham when I serve it) than this. It literally FELL APART and my husband had to use two spatulas to get it out of the crock in a decently whole manner. It was tender and right on the line of  "is this going to be dry?" without being dry. The pear juice was the perfect mild toner (I don't know what else to call it) for the meat and all that brown sugar. I definitely went into taking a bite thinking that it was going to be sweeter than it was. Nope! It was perfectly tempered, seriously... you wouldn't take a bite and think "this is sweet". Very VERY good! I'm sure the Hammy Bean Soup I'm making with the leftovers I wrestled away from Shawn (just about literally) will be delicious as well!