Apricot-glazed Ham with Sautéed Spicy Green Beans

I'm trying this week to eat no added sugar because I've found myself having weeks where every day I need a mid-morning pick-me-up donut and I hate that. So this week, it's all very explicitly planned meals.

I'm also trying to keep using up food that I've got in the freezer. I don't really like things that have been frozen, somehow, so it bothers me that I just keep on buying things that are frozen and then leaving them to sit for half an age. (I have a box of chicken burgers, unopened, in my freezer that I've had since I moved here. In February 2007.) I tend to freeze leftovers a lot too, but once they disappear into the freezer, I sometimes forget about that.

This black forest ham was one of those forgotten things. When I was looking for healthy recipes for the week (though this one does contain sugar, the very thing I was trying so hard to avoid!) I ran across a recipe for baked ham and suddenly remembered the dish in the freezer. The meat, on inspection, was a bit freezer burnt, but otherwise fine. It smelled, from the first cook-through, of cloves, but that was okay because the recipe also contains cloves.

This apricot glaze smells and tastes like fall to me. It's sweet and sticky and fruity and tastes of cloves and cinnamon. It'd be perfect for a fall dinner, Thanksgiving maybe, followed up by a spicy pumpkin pie with mounds of whipped cream. (Oh, wait. Probably not so much, if I'm aiming for healthy, eh?)

The ham looks so prominent in the picture because it's propped up on a pile of deliciously spicy green beans. I just steam them lightly, then sauté quickly with a dash of oil and some red pepper flakes. Wonderful.