Gratin d'endives au jambon

I really ought to throw up my hands and just take a day off. With the steady rain we had all day yesterday, there was no way to go outside and take any photos.I walked the dog in the rain in the morning, and Walt walked the dog in the rain toward evening. We just took turns getting wet. I don't have much to blog about besides food. Then again, yesterday's lunch was a classic.

I had three Belgian endives in the fridge. I bought them to eat as salad, but I also bought a head of romaine that looked appetizing and we ate that instead. And we've had so much other food lately — I don't know about you, but the holidays just flew by, even though we weren't busy, and we enjoyed all the food we made and ate — that the endives almost got lost in the shuffle. (You'll notice I also had a few cooked Brussels sprouts left over, so I tossed them in too.)

Endives wrapped in ham and then baked in a cheese sauce (sauce mornay) are a standard in Belgium and France, and there's nothing much better for a hot lunch on a cold, rainy day. First you cook the endives in butter and lemon juice, with garlic. That takes about an hour on low heat. Brown them in the butter before adding the lemon juice. Do them ahead of time if you want.

Then you wrap each endive in a slice of nice ham, or even sliced chicken or turkey breast sold as cold cuts. I used ham. And you make a sauce béchamel and add a lot of cheese in it. Add in the lemon-garlic cooking liquid from the endives too, for more flavor. Pour the cheese sauce over the wrapped endives in a baking dish and set the dish in a hot oven. If the endives and cheese sauce are hot when they go into the oven, it won't take long. Just long enough to brown the casserole, or gratin, on top a little. Don't burn your tongue when you eat it. There's a full recipe here, in two blog posts.