Thanks for the ask! I’m so glad to hear that you have my curry recipe… Apparently a lot of people are using it, and that makes me so happy. It’s one of my very favorite meals to make. Mmm. 

As for the ham and such… This is what Christmas dinner ended up being:

Ham with pineapple and brown sugar glaze, funeral potatoes, pillsbury biscuits, and peas.  The only things that I actually made were the ham and the potatoes, so here are the recipes that I did:

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CROCK POT HAM

– Take a big old ham (ours was 9 lbs) and put it in the crock pot. Make sure that it fits and that you can close the lid. I ended up cutting mine in half and putting the rest back in the fridge. Hah.

– Then take two cans of pineapple tidbits and drain into a little pot. Add a cup of brown sugar, heat on low until you can mix it into a nice mixture.

– Pour this over the ham, add one of the cans of tidbits all over it. Cook on high for 4 hours, low for another 2, turning ham occasionally.

What worked: the ham was nicely hot all the way through and had a deliciously sweet flavor around the outside. It stayed moist and was really easy to do. 

What didn’t: The sauce leftover was very watery because the ham itself loses a lot of water while cooking. This didn’t bother us because neither Aaron nor I ever put sauce on the ham afterward, unlike everyone else that we know. My mom says that if this happens you can pour the juice into a pot and boil it to get it to a more syrupy consistency, but I think I’m just going to put the leftover ham that wasn’t cooked in and crockpot it for a while. 

Overall: Not as good as the ham that my mom makes, but it was very tasty and we have lots of leftovers. I see a lot of sandwiches and chef salads in my future. 

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Funeral Potatoes aka Cheesy Potato Casserole 

This is something that I didn’t realize was so… Utah until I started researching it in preparation for tackling making Christmas Dinner for the first time on my own. Aha. And then all of the recipes argue about what they call for. Ridiculous. Here are three of the recipes that I printed out:

1. http://www.ourbestbites.com/2011/04/funeral-potatoes/
2. http://blogs.kcrw.com/goodfood/2011/02/recipe-mormon-funeral-potatoes/
3. http://www.barbarabakes.com/2011/08/utahs-best-funeral-potatoes/

In the end what I did was:

• 1 30oz bag of frozen hashbrowns
• 2 tsps minced garlic
• 1 bunch of chopped green onions
• 1 26oz can cream of chicken soup
• 1 cup fat-free sour cream
• 2 cups shredded medium cheddar
• ¼th cup shredded fresh Parmesan
• 2 tsp salt
• ½ tsp pepper
• 1 ½ cups corn flakes
• 2 tbsp melted butter

Mix everything but the cornflakes, butter, and hashbrowns together in a big bowl. Then mix that in with the hashbrowns. Pour all of that into a baking pan or casserole dish. Crush up cornflakes in a ziplock bag, mix into melted butter, pour on top. Cook all of that in the oven at 350*F for 45 minutes. 

What worked: It was gooey, cheesy, and pretty tasty! It went especially well with the ham and peas. Mm.

What didn’t: It still wasn’t just like mom’s, probably because I wasn’t using her recipe (which is all in her head). I could have let it cook a little longer to get a more crispy top, which might have been nice, but I was very hungry. Next time, I’ll use half as many green onions and do half a cup of normal onions to get it a little more savory tasting. I’d also like to try it with cream of mushroom soup instead of cream of chicken, as I always tend to like that better.

Overall: It worked out well enough! I still need to do some tweaking to get the recipes where I want it, but it did what it was supposed to (go with ham and be warm and potatoey).

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Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to put this cherry pie in the oven for dessert!