Our oven will not light, have had 2 repair men, no one knows how to fix it, it is a 50s Okeefe & Merrit.

We plan on having one of our homegrown hams for Christmas dinner, how would be the best way to cook it without an oven?

-- Hendo (OR) (redgate@echoweb.net), December 21, 2000

Answers

I have gotten good results in a big crockpot before. Takes a long time but very tender and tasty. Maybe on the grill?? Done that too but that requires a lot of tending unless you have a rotissory(sp?) attachment. This should be interesting to see other responses. Sorry about your oven. What a pain!!! diane in michigan

-- Diane Green (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), December 21, 2000.

Hendo, do you have an electric roaster? They're only about 70 bucks or so, if you don't. My folks have Christmas Eve Dinner at thier house every year. Anywhere from 25 to 30 people, so Dad cooks 2 turkeys. He does them both in roasters. One of his roasters is at least 30 years old, and still cooks perfectly. How big a ham are you talking about? A large roaster will handle a 20 lb. bird, so a fairly large ham should be no problem. Granted, you probably don't need to spend more money in the holiday season, but at least this is something that could get alot of use. Hams, turkeys, large batches of chili, 'kraut, etc. Dad even went so far as to "recycle" an old bathroom sink base (cabinet) as a place to set a roaster on the enclosed back porch. Another advantage to a roaster, you don't heat up the kitchen as much, tho' I doubt that's a problem, this time of year. Hope this helps. Good luck. John

-- John D in Pa. (mrmopar@penn.com), December 21, 2000.

What a bad time of year for the oven to poop out! I am oven-repair illiterate but I know how to cook a ham. We always put ours on the Weber grill. Place an old or disposable pan in the center of a ring of coals(not on)to catch the drippings in the bottom of the grill. Place your piggie on the grill and keep dome lid on.You don't need to watch it too closely as will evenly cook. If the ham is fresh,not pre- cooked I would recommend a meat thermometer to guage done-ness.We learned this while in the Army in El Paso. It was always such tropical type temps there on Christmas that we enjoyed the novelty of being on the front porch with the Weber all day! Now that we're back in snowy friged In. we are missing those days alot! Merry Christmas. In Messiah's name.Q.

-- Queen (queenbuffness@hotmail.com), December 21, 2000.

go with the grill-using indirect heat. We have done our turkeys and roasts and hams this way for some time. Weber has a website you can get directions for indirect cooking. The only real watchingyou have to do if you use a meat thermometer is to add charcol to each side every hour to maintain the heat.

Hope that helps, Sarah

-- Sarah (heartsongacres@juno.com), December 21, 2000.

Hendo! I'ts just too blamed far fer me to come fix your oven! Sounds like it's fixable but it's gonna take an older duffer to know how to work on a "bypass" pilot adjustment thats located in the thermostat. If you want me to make a stab at it over the net--holler. hoot. Matt. 24:44

-- hoot (hoot@pcinetwork.com), December 21, 2000.

Hendo, I only have a couple seconds right now, but if you want some resources for fixing the stove, email me and I'll send them to you later. Places I found on the web. Won't help you with your Christmas ham dilemna, but will hopefully let you salvage your neat old stove.

I am looking for a Maytag Dutch Oven range, circa 1950-1952, and came across the websites.

-- Joy Froelich (dragnfly@chorus.net), December 21, 2000.

You could "pot roast" it in a large dutch oven with about a cup of water, or you can have boiled ham, covered in water in a kettle. I often do the boiled ham to get rid of a lot of the salt.

Or you can do a combination of both. Place in kettle of water, bring to a rolling boil, then pot roast.

-- Laura (gsend@hotmail.com), December 21, 2000.

You could put it in an outdoor smoker grill. They are delicious smoked.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), December 21, 2000.

Too bad todays microwaves don't cook like mine. (Bought it in the mid 70's.) It's large enough to hold a 25 pound turkey or large ham. And it browns the meat beautifully (no broiler thingy on top, either!) It has the rotating carousel. I still haven't figured out why the meat doesn't come out gray! -G-

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), December 24, 2000.

Hendo, when I moved out to my present place, Thanksgiving came and no oven yet. I wanted to roast a whole turkey. I stuck a joint of stovepipe on an old Ashley wood heater outdoors and set a 5 gal. pot on it with several quarts of cooking oil. The turkey just fit, was covered with boiling oil. It came out wonderful - not greasy as you would expect. It was a bit over done, as I learned too late they cook MUCH faster this way. I'm sure it would work with a ham. Don't ask me what to do with all that left over oil.... Good luck.

-- Sam in W.Va, (turnip55a@yahoo.com), December 24, 2000.

Sam, I think that once folks have deep fried turkey, they'll never use the oven again! I'm sure it would work on any meat, but maybe temperature and time would differ.

Here's a recipe, altho I'm not crazy 'bout cajun and use different spices.

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), December 25, 2000.

Sam, I think that once folks have deep fried turkey, they'll never use the oven again! I'm sure it would work on any meat, but maybe temperature and time would differ.

Here's a recipe, altho I'm not crazy 'bout cajun and use different spices.

Whoops, forgot the url!

http://www.tznet.com/lwittman/turkey.html

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), December 25, 2000.

Well, we tried boiling a country ham for Christmas and it wasn't very good. Left hard places and took out all the salt.

The men who sliced the ham for us said try grilling a few slices of it and said it was great that way. Of course, we didn't. Wish we had tried the advice of someone who apparently knew how to fix it.

-- Wanda King (wanda7@edge.net), December 27, 2000.