Forget Turkey! Try Sam’s CastleWood Holiday Ham #MealsTogether

You know how everyone is drooling over the thought of turkey in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving?

Not me! Our family has never done turkey on Thanksgiving because my dad always thought that turkey meat was too dry. We normally had a ham and chicken for Thanksgiving. While I do like turkey, I prefer a ham for holiday dinners, and you can do so much more with the leftovers than you can with turkey! It doesn’t dry out as fast, either, so you have a day or two before you have to worry about it going to waste!

I went to Sam’s Club and bought a CastleWood spiral cut holiday ham to make my very own Thanksgiving main dish, and you can read about my shopping trip in this Google+ story.  I was pretty nervous about making my own ham for the first time but luckily, the CastleWood ham was already cooked and spiral sliced – all I had to do was reheat it before serving!

I used a can of Pineapple chunks and a jar of maraschino cherries and sat the ham on top, then marinated it in the fridge overnight. The next morning, I preheated the oven to 350 and cooked the CastleWood ham for about 30 minutes, then removed it from the oven and glazed it with the included packet of glaze mix.

Not too bad, right? It smelled so incredibly good that I had a hard time not tearing off a piece right there!

Everyone loved the CastleWood ham, especially my mom who I put in charge of serving the ham while I took photos of our family on Thanksgiving! She loved that it was already sliced and all she had to do was dish it out!

There were plenty of leftovers because there were a few main dishes, my mom actually made a turkey this year! Her turkey was pretty good but I got a lot of rave reviews of the CastleWood ham that I bought at Sam’s Club.

The ham was a great alternative to the turkey, even Dad and my nephew Dakota loved it!

My dad said that he liked the thinly sliced CastleWood ham better than the kind that they usually make, which is thicker and requires carving.

My CastleWood ham was $19.00 at Sam’s Club, and about 10 people had a few slices at Thanksgiving dinner, plus the kids. There was still plenty leftover for me to take home and try out some new leftovers recipes!

Chris had to go back to work on Friday, so it was just Angeline and I at lunch. I decided to make a grilled cheese with sharp cheddar and the leftover CastleWood ham. Because I had cooked it in the pineapples and cherries, and it had a sweet glaze, the ham had a little bit of sweetness to it, and the sharp cheddar was a great contrast!

I thought about writing out a recipe for this grilled ham and cheese, but who really needs a recipe? It’s one of the easiest things to make!

I cooked each piece of bread like a regular grilled cheese sandwich, in a dab of butter in the pan over medium heat for about a minute.

Then I removed them from the pan and grilled the slice of ham for about a minute to make it nice and warm! The ham had to be nice and hot in order for the cheese to melt when I reassembled the sandwich in the pan!

Dude, it was SO GOOD. Like insanely delicious!

I don’t think I am ever going to be able to eat regular processed lunch meat ham ever again!

Now that I’ve written this post, I want to go buy another CastleWood ham!

How much longer until Christmas?

I am a member of the Collective Bias®  Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and Castle Wood #CBias #SocialFabric All opinions are my own!