Scalloped Potates with Ham

Now that we can no longer use box mixes because of Dancer's food color allergy, I have been looking for alternatives.  We rarely ate boxed scalloped potatoes from the box before so I don't know if they are colored or not.  While searching through a cookbook though I found a scalloped potatoes recipe that looked good.  As usual, I changed it for our preferences, adding more onion, a pepper and different spices.  I served this with carrot sticks and biscuits with jam and it was a hit.  I am looking forward to leftovers tommorrow.

Scalloped Potatoes with Ham

2 pounds of potatoes - about six medium - sliced thin
1 onion chopped
1 pepper chopped - any color I had red on hand
2 cups of ham
4 tbsp. butter
3 tbsp. flour
salt, pepper and Mrs. Dash to taste - or whatever spices you like
2 1/2 cups milk

Melt the butter in a sauce pan.  Add flour and spices and cook until mixture is smooth and bubbly.  Slowly, a little bit at a time, add the milk stirring constantly.  When all the milk is added boil for one minute to insure the flour is cooked and will thicken the milk.

Put half the potatoes, onion, pepper and ham in a baking dish.  Pour on half the white sauce.  Put rest of ingredients in dish and pour rest of white sauce on top.  Cover and bake for 1/2 hour at 350 degrees.*  Remove the cover and bake a good hour until potatoes are tender.  Let sit 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

*If you use the timer on the oven to time the first 30 minutes until it is time to uncover the dish and leave the room when the timer will be going off,  make sure your son, who is trying to be helpful, didn't turn the oven off instead of the timer because your dinner will not be done when you think it will be.  Trust me, I know!