Call Any Vegetable!

I haven't published any recipes for a while and since we are in the midst of the Festival of Zappadan, I thought I'd publish some vegetable dishes that I know and frequently make. The photo above is Endives au Jambon. The vegetable I want to summon tonight is the The Endive!
Endives are a form of chickory. Some types of chickory are allowed in the summer to fully grow like a lettuce. They have frizzy leaves and a pleasant bitter taste and crunch.

This variety is from Belgium and eaten in the winter. They are grown in sand and the root is forced to send up hardy shoots which are covered in sand and blanched.
They develop a more sweeter taste. They are good just as a braised vegetable or raw in winter salads. We often eat endive salad with apples and walnuts with a vinagrette for lunch.

The Endive au Jambon is pretty simple. I take one or two endives per person and parboil them. Meanwhile I make a simple bechamel sauce. Extremely simple.
Melt some butter in a saucepan and add some flour and cook them together until you have a shiny paste. Be careful not to burn it. Add milk until it is creamy....cook it a little to thicken it, salt, pepper and a dash of nutmeg.

Take some slices of ham and wrap them around the endives, place in a baking dish, pour in the bechamel and just cover the endives.
Finish it off by a coating of grated gruyere or some kind of cheese. You could use cheddar. Pop it into the oven and let the cheese melt and brown a bit.
That's it.
You can praise Frank Zappa for this vegetable moment!