Try, Try Again: Chicken Casserole

Sometimes, despite our best efforts and intentions, things just don’t go the way we planned. This has been one of those weeks – computer problems, forgetting ingredients at the store, forgetting to put ingredients into recipes. It has all been a reminder of the famous saying, “When at first you fail, try, try again.”

My “plan” was to have Chicken Casserole for dinner on Monday night. Then I ran into computer problems, lost track of time, looked at the recipe and saw that it requires 2.5 hours to cook. If my husband and I had wanted to eat dinner before the 10 o’clock news came on, it meant we were going to have to change our plans (translation: we ordered pizza).

So, now that I knew I needed to leave enough time to cook the recipe, my “new plan” was to have it on Tuesday night. As I was pulling all of the ingredients out to make the casserole, I realized I didn’t have evaporated milk and remembered using it for something the week before. So it was Plan B for dinner on Tuesday night as well.

Finally, yesterday, it all came together. After making the Black Bottom Pie and getting really down on myself for forgetting the vanilla, I was very careful with the Chicken Casserole recipe. To save money and room in the fridge, I cut the amount of chicken in half. I had planned on cutting the entire recipe in half, but thought I’d make the full amount of sauce and see if it would be too much. Plus, I didn’t know what I’d do with the leftover half can of cream of chicken soup. I ended up using all the sauce and I’m glad I did. 

This casserole smells amazing while it is cooking (which is good because you smell it for 2.5 hours). After the first bite, my husband and I both agreed this is a new favorite and we’ll be making it often (Murphy was happy to hear that because he was a fan as well). However, we did notice that when we were out running errands later on, our jackets smelled like Chicken Casserole. Maybe that’s why the sales people at Verizon were so hungry for our business. We even brought out the nice wedding china that we’ve never used. Who says you can’t use nice dishes when you’re eating off a TV tray in the living room? 

This week has been a lesson in preparedness and flexibility. I guess it’s good to have those reminders every once in a while, even though they can be a little frustrating. I also realized that in my haste to get the Black Bottom Pie recipe posted and due to my devastation of forgetting an ingredient, I forgot to mention that I learned how to separate an egg. This is yet another culinary skill that I had never acquired and once again resorted to finding guidance on the Internet. Here is a link a helpful video I found. And I am very proud to say, I successfully separated four eggs in a row with no casualties. I never thought that something as simple as separating egg yolk from egg white could be so exhilarating.