The Casseroles Continue....

Tonight's Casserole is Ham and Potatoes Au Gratin.  You already know what recipe book it's from!  This one features hash brown potatoes, ham, spinach, onion and a made-from-scratch cheese sauce.  I'm not the sauce guru in this house, in fact I usually don't have luck with them at all.  But I made the sauce exactly as the recipe indicated and I didn't get the usual clumping, separating mess that results from me making sauce.    The recipe also called for frozen shredded hash browns, but there was an overabundance of potatoes in the house, so I shredded my own.  It didn't take long with a box grater, though they seemed kind of thin.

I layered the ham, potatoes, sauce and spinach onion mixture as indicated, and baked at 350 degrees.  The result was uhmm.....interesting.  Smelled great, but didn't look quite right.  A quick stir through the serving on the plate revealed that the potatoes were a ghastly shade of gray.  A couple of bites said that the ham, cheese sauce, spinach and onions were delicious, but the potatoes were limp and the consistency of oversteamed cabbage.  Gah!!! Picking through the ham and veggies was enough to tide us over for the night, but none of this one is going to go in the freezer.  My garbage disposal is going to eat well tonight.

I'd definitely try this one again, but with the 20oz package of frozen hash browns it called for instead of trying to be thrifty.  I'm just disappointed that my luscious, velvety cheese sauce met an unfortunate end!