All-In-One Thanksgiving Dinner: Chicken & Stuffing Casserole

As the days get shorter and colder, more and more signs that the holiday season is quickly approaching begin to pop up everywhere. Stores are already decorating for Christmas. Reminders to order your Thanksgiving turkey are in grocery stores and farmers markets. And when we were visiting friends last weekend, their 5-year old was already watching the Charlie Brown Christmas special on DVD (I had to applaud her for that one, it’s one of my favorites and always makes me happy, no matter what time of year I see it). 

But the cooler temperatures and leafless trees trigger more than the desire to bundle up, they also stir up cravings for comfort food. One of my favorite types of comfort food is casseroles (or hot dishes as they are typically called in Minnesota). So after I closed all the windows and flipped the switch for heat in the house, I dove into the casserole section of The Found Recipe Box to see what I could find. And I found just the recipe to get us all in the mood for the upcoming November holiday: Chicken & Stuffing Casserole.

This is yet another very simple recipe to prepare: throw some chicken breasts in a baking dish, cover them with Swiss cheese, stir the stuffing mixture, pour it over the top of the chicken, and then throw it in the oven. The hardest part is waiting the two hours for it to bake. But it was well worth the wait. Upon first bite, my husband and I both agreed that it tasted just like Thanksgiving dinner. The only thing missing was a side of cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie (or perhaps pumpkin chiffon pie – either version 1 or version 2 from The Found Recipe Box). The only change we’d make is to skip the Swiss cheese layer the next time. 

If you’re looking for a way to get into the spirit if the holidays without stepping foot into a store that is all lit up and that bombards you with the smell of cinnamon pine cones, pop this dish into the oven. Soon your home will be enveloped in the aroma of Thanksgiving and even the first bite will warm you up enough to ward off the winter cool down for just a little longer. It’s a great way to enjoy all the senses of the season without all the stress that comes along with preparing a full Thanksgiving meal. And if that doesn’t put you in the holiday mood, pop in the Charlie Brown Christmas DVD – it always fills my heart with that warm, loving light of the season. 

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.