December 06, 2017

Chicken Casserole

December 06, 2017/ Blair Cowan

Recently a friend asked me if there were any recipes I had discovered in the Recipe Box so far that I've made more than once. I thought hard about it- there aren't a lot of recipes I've made more than once (always new things to try, you know?), so it's not really a question of whether I've found any good recipes. After considering, I realised that yes, I now have a chocolate fudge cake I adore, a pound cake I've accidentally made twice (ha!) and a banana caramel cake I can't get enough of.

And now I also have this chicken recipe, which I've already made three times (and haven't even told you about it until now! I know!). The first time, I made this for myself when Judson was out of town for work and loved it so much I re-made it the day he got back so he could enjoy it too. The third time was this week when, suffering from the jetlag that comes from visiting Southeast Asia and then returning to Europe, and the culture shock that comes from hanging out in 38 degree-Celsius weather drinking out of coconuts for two weeks and then returning to a city in the throes of Christmas preparations, I couldn't think of a better way to warm our freezing-cold flat up.

I really thought I was in for another 'chicken in chicken sauce' type of event when I started this (which is why I made it when poor Judson was out of town), but it hasn't let me down yet, and I daresay you'll have the same results.* This recipe lends itself to the simple: you can make it with only the three required ingredients and it will be amazing, or you can add in whatever you have to hand, like half an onion, a leek or two, a rib of celery, some chopped bacon lardons or even a handful of roasted chestnuts. I think you could even swap the rice for quinoa for a whole-grain improvement, but I haven't tried it yet.

*Read the original recipe and you'll see why- it was written on a torn-off piece of receipt paper and it looks like a haiku written by someone who doesn't understand syllables:

cream celery or chicken SOUP
water & extra
brown on 1 sine
on top of rice
pipert 1 hr
salt

The verdict:

5 spoons out of five. No matter how you make it, this is a cosy, one-pan dish that will warm up your kitchen and have your entire house smelling like a home in no time. The best part? The leftovers heat up like a dream, so you're off dinner duty tomorrow night, too. It's not a classy recipe, but when you're jetlagged, cold, or just ready for an easy, warming dinner, this will definitely do the trick.

One year ago: Crazy Crust Apple Pie
two years ago: Chocolate Chiffon Cake

the recipe:

Chicken Casserole

the directions:

Preheat oven to 190C/375F.
Heat oil in an oven-proof skillet over medium heat.
Add chicken thighs, face down, and brown for 5 minutes until golden (more browning will occur in oven).
Flip over and cook for an additional 5 minutes.
Check one thigh for doneness by poking into thickest part and checking the colour of the juices. If juice is still red, continue browning for an additional 3-5 minutes (chicken should be JUST done when you remove it).
Remove chicken from pan, drain all but 1 tbsp of liquid and spoon rice evenly into the pan.
Pour soup over rice, then any additional ingredients you're adding, finishing by adding chicken to the pan last.
Pop into preheated oven and bake 15-20 minutes or until heated through and well-browned.

the ingredients:

2 tbsp oil
1 package chicken thighs (as many as will fit in your pan)
3 cups rice, cooked
1 can or 2 cups homemade cream of chicken or cream of celery soup

optional: lardons, leeks, onion, chestnuts, celery, garlic cloves, or anything else in your fridge that needs to be used up.

February 24, 2016

Creative Casserole

February 24, 2016/ Blair Cowan

Judson has been called away to London for a few days for work, so I’ve been home by myself this week. I love London a lot more than Judson does, so while I am jealous, I’m trying to rein in my jealousy and take advantage of this unexpected solo time to make recipes I know he doesn’t like. Our tastes mostly align pretty well, but there are definitely a handful of things I like much more than he does (Tacos! Macaroni cheese! Anything with sriracha! Breakfast-for-Dinner!), and firmly rooted in this category is anything involving cheese. Before we were married, we used to joke about how my go-to meal when I was having dinner alone was ‘Single Girl Surprise,’ basically macaroni and cheese with whatever veggies I happened to have leftover in my fridge (usually peas).*

This was obviously before I knew how to cook things like prime rib, salmon, crab, and other things. Sorry, 20-something Blair, for not learning how to cook sooner.

Anyway, Judson is gone this week and I have been plunged back into the lands of ‘single girl surprise,’ which, this time around, still involves pasta, though I have graduated beyond boxed macaroni cheese. So in honour of being alone for the week, here’s a riff on the OG Single Girl Surprise of my 20s… I give you: Creative Casserole.

This is not actually a casserole at all, but it does involve that most dreaded of ingredients: Spam. I’ve been putting off making this forever, partly because it’s on the reverse of a much tastier recipe, partly because it’s not a super healthy meal, and mostly, let’s not kid ourselves, because it contains Spam and I didn’t want to be known as a person who has ever purchased (let alone cooked with) Spam.

I haven’t actually tasted Spam since I was a kid and we used to take it on camping trips, but it is, to be fair, not nearly as terrible as I assumed it would be. That said… it’s still Spam. Not quite ham, definitely not bacon, and housed in a can. If you can get past the inclusion of Spam, this is basically baked macaroni—a dish to which I am not inherently opposed. However, with the inclusion of Spam, it becomes a Creative Casserole you’ll be too embarrassed to try, but you’ll still want to know what the result was. It’s here that I must disappoint you, dear reader. I thought it would be awful—inedible, in fact! I had the curry takeaway order all ready to go in case we needed a last minute emergency dinner in case this one went predictably awry in a blaze of pinwheeled processed-ham glory, but it turned out…ok.

I’m not saying I’m a fan, but if you ignore the triangles of Spam on top (too much for a single bite, in my humble, ex-vegetarian opinion), this isn’t a terrible dish. I mean, we all know ham and cheese go together like gangbusters, and we’ve already established that I subsisted for most of my early 20s on a diet of macaroni and cheese with frozen peas stirred in, so from there, you only have to adjust yourself to the idea of onions in your macaroni, which is not exactly uncommon, and which, in this instance, definitely adds a nice counterpoint to the salty ‘ham’ and sweet peas.** Plus the extra crunch from the still-al-dente onions was definitely welcomed.

I know this isn’t a cool opinion and if I were ever to make this again, I would 100% make it with pancetta instead of Spam, but for an experimental recipe in the quest to make everything in the Recipe Box, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be (or, for that matter, nearly as bad as some other things I’ve made).

*I have a theory that every woman has a recipe for Single Girl Surprise, and they are all different. For a good friend of mine, it's ramen noodles with peanut butter and sriracha mixed into the sauce for a faux-Thai-style curry. Another friend makes refrigerator pasta, which is just pasta with bread crumbs and whatever groceries she has that need to be used up. I'm fascinated by these 'go-to' recipes and always keen to hear what other people's are.

** After saying this at work one too many times, a co-worker recently asked me what 'gangbusters' means, and after looking up its origins, I discovered that it is an American saying dating back to a radio show from the 1940s. Fitting for this blog, I think!