The ham came off the pellet grill at 12:52 on Easter Sunday reading 141 degrees in the thickest part, and Matt held up the Thermapen to show me like a kid with a report card. A month ago, standing in a stranger's driveway in Richardson, he promised me this grill would earn its spot on the patio by Easter. It did.
We hosted nine this year: the five of us, my mom Carol and my stepdad Gary from Denton, and my brother Josh and his girlfriend Maddie, up from Austin. Kristen's crew went to Ryan's family this year, so for once everyone fit at our dark wood table without borrowing folding chairs from church.
The ham, and why the grill
Last year I warmed a 9.2-pound spiral ham from Aldi in the oven for eleven people. This year Kroger's Easter ad had bone-in half hams at $1.79 a pound, and I found one that weighed exactly 10 pounds: $17.90. It isn't spiral sliced, which I prefer for the smoker, since spiral slices dry out at the edges.
A ham like this is already fully cooked, so the grill is really reheating it slowly and adding smoke, which is exactly what a pellet grill is good at. Matt scored the fat in diamonds Saturday night, and Sunday he set the ham cut side down in a foil pan with a cup of water.
We went to the early service, got home at 9:45, and the ham went on at 10:05 with the grill at 275 and a fresh hopper of hickory blend pellets. Matt checked it twice an hour and otherwise sat on the patio with his coffee, which is why he bought this grill. The USDA's number for reheating a fully cooked ham like this one is 140 degrees, and that's what we went by. Hams that aren't fully cooked have different guidance, so read the label on yours.
The glaze went on twice in the last 40 minutes: a cup of brown sugar, a quarter cup of honey, three tablespoons of Dijon mustard, a splash of pineapple juice and a pinch of ground cloves, simmered on the stove for five minutes. The smoke was gentler than what his offset puts out, and Matt mentioned it (he always does), but on a ham that's a feature.
Everything else, made ahead
With the ham outside, the oven belonged to the sides, and I treated Saturday like a catering prep day. By four o'clock this was in the fridge:
- Baked macaroni and cheese, assembled in a 9x13 and covered
- A cheesy potato casserole with sour cream and green onions
- Green beans, trimmed, with the bacon cooked and crumbled and the onion chopped
- Deviled eggs, a full dozen, which felt like nothing at $2.29 a dozen after last spring's $4.67
- Three pounds of Texas strawberries, sliced and sugared for shortcake
The shortcake wasn't up for debate. In March I told the family they could have it for Easter if the berries were still $1.99. They'd crept up to $2.49 by Holy Week, and they got their shortcake anyway. I baked the drop biscuits while we ate, so they came out warm for dessert.
Where the timing slipped
I wrote the oven schedule on the paper plan like a ticket rail: mac and cheese and potatoes in at 12:30, everything out at 1:15, rolls in for ten minutes, lunch at 1:30. What I didn't account for was two cold casseroles going straight from the fridge into the oven. At 1:15 the potatoes were still lukewarm in the middle, so they got another twenty minutes while the ham rested under foil and Gary circled the island. We sat down at 1:50. Next time those dishes come out of the fridge while the oven heats, which is exactly what I'd have done at work and exactly what I forgot to do at home.
Nobody seemed to mind. Maddie asked for the glaze recipe, and Gary had three helpings and told Matt he'd gotten his money's worth out of that Marketplace grill. Eli had plain ham, plain mac and cheese and a buttered biscuit, each in its own corner of the plate. Rosie hunted plastic eggs in the backyard with Wyatt carrying her basket, and Biscuit found two of them first.
What it cost
- Bone-in half ham, 10 pounds at $1.79: $17.90
- Glaze (brown sugar, honey, Dijon, pineapple juice): $2.40
- Pellets, about 8 pounds: $3.60
- Macaroni and cheese: $9.85
- Cheesy potato casserole: $8.95
- Green beans with bacon and onion: $6.45
- Deviled eggs: $3.40
- Hawaiian rolls, one pack: $3.49
- Strawberry shortcake for nine: $12.36
- Sweet tea and lemons: $3.00
That's $71.40 for nine people, about $7.93 each. Last year's Easter for eleven was about $88, or $8 a head, so we landed in the same place per person. Josh and Maddie brought drinks and ice, which is Josh's job at every family meal.
About four pounds of ham are left. Some is sliced and frozen for sliders, some is diced for breakfast tacos, and the bone is in a bag labeled "red beans." Last night I opened the kitchen gear tab in the spreadsheet, found the pellet grill's line, $286, and the note I'd left beside it in March: "He promised." I added one word in the next column. "Delivered."
