Bite Of Minnesota: Glazed Ham With Pepper Jelly

With Easter less than a week away, the food publications are loading us up with recipe and meal ideas. I can't complain too much because I'm also going to share "The Perfect Recipe For Your Easter Gathering!" While my recipe is for a delicious ham, I've seen an abundance of lamb recipes recently. Is that a thing? Do families serve rack of lamb for Easter? If so, that sounds tasty but a little bit advanced, at least for me.

In my family, we serve ham on Easter Sunday but outside of adding some brown sugar, cloves, and pineapple slices, we rarely spice it up. However, my husband makes pepper jelly from our garden peppers and I thought this Food & Wine recipe would be the perfect place to use it!

This recipe isn't one of those set-it-and-forget-it kinds. You roast the ham for 2 1/2 hours, glazing every 15 minutes and the pepper jelly doesn't even come into the picture until serving time, but it's well worth the effort. Do yourself a favor and buy a bone-in smoked ham; it adds so much flavor and you can use the ham bone for a soup stock later.

The red pepper jelly can be homemade and I've included the accompanying recipe here, but if you're not up for it, buy some from your local co-op. A little advanced warning for my spice-conscious Minnesotans: pepper jelly does have a bit of kick to it, but it's not going to burn your face off. Get the ham recipe here.