Chicken and green chili casserole

Jordan brought me a recipe the other day she thought sounded wonderful. No wonder! It had all her favorite things—chicken, cream cheese, sour cream, and green chilies. But it had no proportions—to get the recipe with amount of each ingredient you had to download a program that I didn’t think I wanted on my computer (my computer guru son-in-law always scolds me for the junk on my computer). So I started a search.

Came up with a recipe I thought sounded good—until I started to make it. It called for skinless, boneless breast that you pour the sauce over. To me, it sounded better to use the two large bone-in, skin-on breast I had in the freezer—cook them first and dice.

A word here about poaching chicken breasts: thanks to the New York Times cooking column, I’ve learned a new way to poach chicken pieces. I always thought boiling them made the meat tough (I’m not a terrific fan of chicken!). What I now do is put a large pot of water on to boil and season it with some chopped green onions and black peppercorns. Be sure the pot has a tight-fitting lid. When the water comes to a full, rolling boil, turn off the heat, slide the chicken pieces in, and clamp that lid on tight. Let it sit at least two hours—I prefer three. When you do fish the chicken out, cut to the bone in a test piece. If it’s still pink, put it back and simmer for another twenty minutes. Soft, tender meat.

Back to my recipe: I realized it had cream cheese but nothing to liquefy the sauce. So I added sour cream. Then, when I got it all together, I thought it needed a topping or something to finish it off. You can use your imagination here. Corn chips would have been good, but I didn’t have any. French’s fried onions would also have worked. I used Ritz crackers because I had them.

So here’s what I ended up with.

Two large chicken breasts, skin on, bone in, cooked and diced—about three cups (Yes, you could use rotisserie chicken)

1 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese

½ c. sour cream

1 4 oz. can green chilies

1 cup Monterey Jack cheese, grated

½ tsp. garlic powder

Salt and pepper to taste

For the topping:

½ c. cracker crumbs

2 Tbsp. butter, melted

            Mix casserole ingredients together in a 4x9 baking pan. Top with crumbs or whatever. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until bubbly and hot. What could be easier?