This is in a good way.  We have all seen the internet fails of people who tried to make something they saw on the internet and it became an epic fail. The head fell off the doll, the soup was saltier than the Dead Sea, or the wallpaper wound up on the dog, cat and human attempting to put it up. Occasionally, I have an idea of something I want to try and it works. This is a success story.
In a blog I read and follow I saw a comment about a Ham Pot Pie. This began the thought process, we had just eaten a made from scratch chicken pot pie, I had just gotten a good deal on ham the week before. This could be a marriage made in heaven, my family was very skeptical since we had never heard of this before and had no point of reference on how it would come out. In my head I had already created the recipe.
I didn’t actually write a recipe, I am more of a handful of this and a pinch of that type of cook. I decided that sweet potatoes would be best in this pie, so I sliced a sweet potato into 1/2 inch slices and roasted until it was soft. I knew green beans had to play a part so I got those. In the refrigerator I found a handful of sliced carrots and celery leftover from the past Sundays gathering, those went in. The whole family likes corn so that jumps into the picture.
To pull as much flavor as possible and to protect my aging belly, I always lightly fry onion before adding it into any dish. So I added all the veggies into the pan with a bit of diced onion to soften and to bring out the flavors and added a fair amount of parsley to this mixture. Tossed this in a bowl with the diced ham.
For a “gravy” I started with a white sauce, butter, flour and milk, in the same pan I used for the veggies to pick up all that flavor. I used a generous tablespoon of brown mustard for my secret ingredient in the white sauce. Next I added about a cup of freshly shredded parmesan cheese to this. This went over all the meat and veggies in the bowl and into the pie dish. Crust on top and then into the oven for about an hour.
With no added salt because of the ham and cheese already included, this tasted really great. Most of us had seconds including the teen-aged male resident who likes nothing new . All of us were skeptical initially, my daughter as I am putting this in the oven said “I will try it, but we do have other leftovers if necessary.”
I even had a bit of leftover pie crust and did what my grandmother always did with it. Cut it into small pieces and put cinnamon/ sugar on top and baked for a few minutes. There is a moral to the story, just do it and say yes.
kathy70 