Think you don't have what it takes to make a homemade casserole?

Just take some leftover holiday ham and cube it, add a can of cream of mushroom soup, some frozen and fresh ingredients, top it with cheese and you have a perfectly yummy Southern Ham Casserole.

This dish, created by author and television personality Sandra Lee, uses fresh ingredients with leftover items and things you would typically have in your pantry to make a great "semi-homemade" entree.

"You can get so many more meals out of those grandiose Sunday suppers - is what I call them - if you know how to use it, which is where the Southern Ham Casserole came from," Lee said. "I just think that classic, comfort, foodie casserole is great in winter as well as the summer as a year-round meal. It's as good for brunch or lunch or dinner and, frankly, I think it's better second time around."

The Southern Ham Casserole uses leftover baked ham, cream of mushroom soup, fresh mushrooms, frozen onions, Pepper Jack cheese, butter, sour cream and red potatoes.

Lee added that you don't have to buy a huge ham for your family to create several suppers from the same Sunday dinner.

"With bone-in ham you don't have to get a 90-pound ham. ... You can get a small family ham, but it is less per pound than ground beef," she said. "You can bake it off with some maple syrup, brown sugar and you don't have sprinkle cloves in it ... frankly, you can use pumpkin pie spice."

The Southern Ham Casserole recipe comes from the chapter "Cook Once Eat Thrice" in Lee's newest cookbook "Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Money Saving Meals," which is all about stocking a pantry with the most cost-effective items to save time and money when cooking other meals for your family - or yourself.

Lee is a TV host on the Food Network show "Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee"

She uses the 70/30 philosophy, which combines 70 percent ready-made products with 30 percent fresh ingredients.

"Certainly people are always interested in saving money on food and meals, and at the end of day ... my job is just to show you how to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.

In the "Cook Once Eat Thrice" chapter of her recent book, Lee suggests that when cooking multiple meals, cooks can divide portions before serving, serve one and refrigerate the rest.

To prepare pasta ahead of time, toss warm pasta with a spoonful of vegetable oil to keep the strands from sticking together. Let it cool, then seal any extra in a zip-top bag The next day you'll have a ready-made side dish.

Evaporated milk is another way Lee suggests to add flavor while saving time and money.

"I use a lot of evaporated milk because it's denser and richer and I love it in gravies," she said. "I just thinks it's a fantastically rich flavor base."

Also frozen veggies is something to always have on hand because "if you buy frozen vegetables they are almost half the price of fresh and you never hear of anyone getting sick on frozen vegetables," Lee said.

Using "double duty" foods also will save time and money in the kitchen. For example, use Italian sausage as a base for many dishes.

"When you are using ground beef in any recipe, it is a very bland flavor. And if you are going to spend that kind of money, or any kind of money per pound on a meat, why not do something that's already seasoned and wonderful?" Lee said. "Before, I just loved it because of its great flavor, but for me at home, I'm using it because I don't have to add a bunch of stuff to it. You can use it for a base for not just spaghetti."

Lee said using the Italian sausage in a dish such as stuffed mushrooms also makes an easy and quick appetizer.

"I gotta tell ya, for stuffed mushrooms with a little bit of Parmesan cheese and maybe some roasted red peppers, it's brilliant," she said. "Chop off your mushrooms stems, stick it in the oven and bake it 20 minutes at 350 (degrees), and you have a fantastic appetizer - but, by the way, is about 39 cents a serving.

"If you take that ingredient base and you add pre-baked cornbread from the grocery store ... toss your crumbled cornbread into the same mixture and put that in your bird or on top of your crown roast."

Herbs and spices, if kept in the pantry, also serve well as double-duty items. Lee said she always keeps Italian seasoning because it can be used in so many dishes.

Lee also suggests using pumpkin pie spice when seasoning your baked ham, and the spice can also be used in Lee's Bourbon Sweet Potato Pie.

The pie is made with a ready-made deep dish frozen pie crust, a bag of frozen sweet potatoes, butter, sugar, eggs, evaporated milk, bourbon and pumpkin pie spice.

After the sweet potatoes are mashed with butter, stir in the eggs, sugar, evaporated milk, bourbon and pumpkin pie spice and pour the mixture into the pie shell.

After it is baked and cooled, drizzle the pie slices with caramel sauce and toasted pecans.

For this recipe, Lee uses Jim Beam bourbon, but she said choosing your favorite brand of bourbon is fine.

"When it comes to alcohol, things are distilled differently," she said. "They have a different finish; some are smooth, some are much more abrupt, so the flavors I believe are different. ... My job is to share with you exactly what I used in my recipes, and if you want to use something else that it great.