Scalloped potatoes with ham

Once again, my cooking impetus consists of what's sitting around in my kitchen at the turning point of usable/not usable. This time, it was some beautiful small Yukon gold potatoes and uncured sliced applewood-smoked ham. Why, I thought, I'll make scalloped potatoes with ham.

Scalloped potatoes are tasty and pretty, and their only drawback is the bit o' work required to peel and thinly slice them. So, that's what you do first.

I had about 12 small potatoes, just a bit larger than fingerlings. The pan was an 8-x-8 pyrex, oiled with olive oil. That's important, because I've learned from experience that insufficient oiling leads to much sticking of potatoes.

Put a layer of the sliced potatoes on the bottom of the pan and sprinkle with a bit of olive oil and some salt and pepper. On this, sprinkle some grated cheese--I used a colby/jack combo because my children would be eating this, too, but I'd've used Gruyere where it only for me. I cut up the ham, about eight pieces sliced on the one setting at the deli, into centimeter pieces and sprinkled a bit of ham on this layer, too.

Continuing layering potatoes, salt, pepper, olive oil, cheese and ham until you run out of it all.

Finally, I mixed together 3/4 cup of chicken broth and 3/4 cup of heavy whipping cream and poured it over the top.

A sprinkling of cheese to cover the top, a covering with foil (important!), and this went into an oven preheated to 350 F for about 1.5 hours.

It smelled divine as it baked and emerged as a tasty hammy-cheesy potato dish that even my children would eat. We had this with green peas and buttered sourdough.

You can dress this up with a bit of flavor expansion by adding some canned, chopped poblano pepper to it and using jack cheese.