Aretha Franklin's Queen of Soul Ham

If you're reading this on a Friday and you're like me, you'll be in the grocery store tomorrow, so today I'll give you ingredients for a recipe for Sunday dinner. How about Aretha Franklin's Queen of Soul Ham? I got this recipe a few years ago when Aretha was on Martha Stewart, B.I. -- Before Incarceration :-P Aretha said on the show that soul can be a lot of things to a lot of folks -- it's a feeling. When you cook, you should put your soul into it -- people will taste the difference (trust me on this one). Now my notes on this one -- I'm giving you Aretha's original recipe for the whole bone-in ham; however, you can achieve the same effect with a couple of ham steaks on a Tuesday night in a shallow baking pan. Just eyeball all the ingredients, switch the whole cloves for clove powder and reduce the amounts of the remaining ingredients so you don't end up with a brown sugar fruit platter! Also -- I just could not put coconut on my ham. Eww... but if you like the idea, go for it! Oh -- and I used dark brown sugar. Light is for babies...lol!

• Ready In: 2 hrs 35 mins
• Serves: 12

Ingredients

• 1 (12 -14 lb)  fully cooked  bone-in ham
•  whole cloves
• 1 (16 ounce) box light brown sugar
• 3  tablespoons yellow mustard
• 1 (8 ounce) jar maraschino cherries, drained
• 1 (12 ounce)  ginger ale (golden is best if you can find it ( but pale is ok too)
• 1 (20 ounce) can pineapple rings
•  baker's coconut (to garnish) (optional)

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Using a paring knife, score the ham, creating a diamond pattern. Insert cloves into the corners of each diamond.
3. Place the ham on a rack set in a 12 x 15-inch roasting pan. Cover loosely with foil, and bake until ham appears juicy, about 30 minutes.
4. Place brown sugar and mustard in a medium bowl, and stir to combine.
5. Gradually add ginger ale to brown sugar mixture until a pourable consistency is achieved; you may not need the whole can.
6. Remove ham from oven and remove foil. Pour brown sugar mixture over ham. Make sure you coat the sides too.
7. Cover ham with foil, return to oven, and cook for 1 hour, basting every 20 minutes.
8. Remove foil for last 20 minutes.
9. Remove ham from oven.
10. Arrange pineapple rings and maraschino cherries in a docorative pattern on ham, securing them with toothpicks.
11. Baste the fruit.
12. Bake ham until fruit is heated through, 7 to 10 minutes.
13. Sprinkle ham with coconut garnish, if desired.