Variations on a recipe

 

Once school starts, everyone seems busier, time is somehow compressed. Maybe it’s something subliminal, like the days are getting shorter or an impending sense that the holidays, busiest time of the year, are not far off. Maybe it’s just that the lazy days of summer are over, and there’s less time for everything—including fixing supper.

I like to keep a rotisserie chicken or two on hand for just such evenings when we’re rushed. Jordan has convinced me that they are easier to bone if you do it right away when you get home from the store, when the chicken is still warm. Not only is it easier to bone, but it takes up a lot less room in the freezer. You can pull it out, cut into chunks, have a casserole in the oven in no time aat all. One problem is that recipes usually call for three or four cups chicken, and I find we don’t always get that much off one bird.

The other night with Jordan out of town I used a rotisserie chicken to fix a simple chicken casserole Christian and Jacob. I thought was delicious.

Chicken Casserole

4 cups chopped, cooked chicken

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 cup sour cream

½ sleeve Ritz crackers

½ stick butter, melted

Lightly spray a casserole dish. Distribute chicken evenly in the dish. Mix sour cream and mushroom soup and pour over chicken. Crush the Ritz crackers—I love the taste of Ritz and they crumble so much more easily than saltines. Just put them in a baggie and whack at them a bit with your rolling pin. You do have a rolling pin, don’t you? Never hurts to ask in this day of baking mixes.

Spread crumbs evenly over casserole and drizzle with butter. Bake at 350 for 20 or 30 minutes.

I have a lazy habit of eating cold leftovers for lunch—lazy because I don’t want to stop what I’m doing and fix something. But I must admit this wasn’t as good the next day. Probably I should have reheated it.

Since I fixed that, I’ve come across variations. Here’s another version:

Diced chicken

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 can cream of celery soup

Pepperidge Farm stuffing

1 c. butter

1-1/2 cups chicken broth

           Bake at 425 for 20 minutes.

Yet another, this with the name, “Grandma’s Chicken Casserole.”

3 cups cooked chicken

2 cans cream of mushroom soup

2 cups grated cheddar cheese

3 cups crushed Ritz crackers

Bake at 350.

And, finally, one with more variation, called “No Peek Chicken”

1 box Uncle Ben’s Long Grain Wild Rice (original recipe—good luck if you can find that--all I find is the instant version)

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 can cream of celery soup

1 can water

Chicken breast or tenders.

Now here’s a bit of speculation on my part. The recipe calls for raw chicken and specifies cooking it for two and a half hours at 350, tightly covered with foil. Take the name seriously, and do NOT peek. If you use rotisserie chicken, you could cut the time down and take advantage of the “instant” feature of the rice. I haven’t tried it, so all I can advise is playing with the time. Maybe an hour?

And the next time someone belittles the 1950s trick of cooking with canned soup just smile and walk away. You know better!