Laundry Night Casserole
Last night I made chicken and rice casserole for the various denizens of the Ancestral Abode, plus girlwslingshot, who came over to share Netflixed Star Trek episodes. The casserole was a hit (one brother-in-law asked "Why haven't we had this before?!"), and it reminded me that I'd been meaning to share this incredibly easy but very popular recipe with you lovelies.
This is the perfect recipe for when you are home all evening doing laundry or cleaning bathrooms and don't really want to think too much about food preparation. The cooking time is actually pretty lengthy, so I recommend starting about an hour and a half before you want to eat, but the prep time is minuscule, leaving most of that hour and a half for engaging in other pursuits while the food does it's thing in the oven. Just don't get engaged in the hunt for a particular book in a room where you can't hear the timer go off. Because that could be bad. Not that I know this from experience, or anything.
This recipe should feed six normal people, or four very hungry people.
This dish is so easy to prepare that it almost doesn't count as cooking, especially if (like me) you relegate all your rice preparation to an electric cooker. The recipe goes like this:
Marie's Laundry Night Casserole
- 1 cup of rice (Yes, just one. Every time I make this, I have to double check the recipe to make sure I read it correctly because one cup of rice looks like so little before it's cooked. But trust me, just one cup. It expands. Like, a lot.)
- 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts or equivalent (I usually use the boneless chicken tenderloin, if I can get it because it's choicer meat and smaller pieces, so they cook faster.)
- 1 can cream of mushroom soup
- 1 can cream of celery soup
- salt/pepper/whatever to taste (If you are like me, you will enjoy this with a healthy dose of "Pepper Potpourri" which is black, red and white peppers ground together with celery salt, garlic salt and just plain salt salt. If you are a sissy like Mr. Bill, you will prefer a much smaller dose of simple black pepper and garden-variety salt. I experimented with a bunch of different seasonings for this dish, and the pepper flavor is my favorite, but it works well with a number of other herbs and spices. So add a dash of whatever the heck you want. Go crazy!)
Directions:
1. Cook the rice. As I mentioned, I use a rice cooker because I have the attention span of a parakeet on speed, and tend to wander off and let rice burn when I try to cook it on the stove. However, those who do not have ADD or a rice cooker should feel free to use their favorite method of rice cookery, whatever that is.
2. Cook the chicken. I bake mine in a glass casserole dish with a little butter and garlic, but this will work with boiled, barbecued or stir-fried chicken, too. The important thing is that no one contracts salmonella. As long as the chicken's cooked, it matters not one whit how it got that way.
(Side note: if you bake this with garlic and butter, do it in a casserole dish. Then just cut up the chicken in the dish, and dump the whole thing--chicken, chicken juices, melted butter, garlic--into the rice, as it adds to the flavor. If you boil or grill the chicken, maybe add a half-cup of chicken broth to replace the juices.)
3. Combine rice, chicken, both cans of soup, and pepper/salt/whatever. The handiest way to do this is usually to mix them all together in the pot you used to cook the rice.
4. Pour into PAM-ed baking dish (I use your standard glass casserole dish, but if you want to use your commemorative baking pan in the shape of an okapi or whatever, that's probably cool. Just grease it or butter it or spray it with PAM first, otherwise half the casserole will stick to your okapi dish.)
5. Cook at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes.
6. Eat!
This is the perfect recipe for when you are home all evening doing laundry or cleaning bathrooms and don't really want to think too much about food preparation. The cooking time is actually pretty lengthy, so I recommend starting about an hour and a half before you want to eat, but the prep time is minuscule, leaving most of that hour and a half for engaging in other pursuits while the food does it's thing in the oven. Just don't get engaged in the hunt for a particular book in a room where you can't hear the timer go off. Because that could be bad. Not that I know this from experience, or anything.
This recipe should feed six normal people, or four very hungry people.
This dish is so easy to prepare that it almost doesn't count as cooking, especially if (like me) you relegate all your rice preparation to an electric cooker. The recipe goes like this:
Marie's Laundry Night Casserole
- 1 cup of rice (Yes, just one. Every time I make this, I have to double check the recipe to make sure I read it correctly because one cup of rice looks like so little before it's cooked. But trust me, just one cup. It expands. Like, a lot.)
- 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts or equivalent (I usually use the boneless chicken tenderloin, if I can get it because it's choicer meat and smaller pieces, so they cook faster.)
- 1 can cream of mushroom soup
- 1 can cream of celery soup
- salt/pepper/whatever to taste (If you are like me, you will enjoy this with a healthy dose of "Pepper Potpourri" which is black, red and white peppers ground together with celery salt, garlic salt and just plain salt salt. If you are a sissy like Mr. Bill, you will prefer a much smaller dose of simple black pepper and garden-variety salt. I experimented with a bunch of different seasonings for this dish, and the pepper flavor is my favorite, but it works well with a number of other herbs and spices. So add a dash of whatever the heck you want. Go crazy!)
Directions:
1. Cook the rice. As I mentioned, I use a rice cooker because I have the attention span of a parakeet on speed, and tend to wander off and let rice burn when I try to cook it on the stove. However, those who do not have ADD or a rice cooker should feel free to use their favorite method of rice cookery, whatever that is.
2. Cook the chicken. I bake mine in a glass casserole dish with a little butter and garlic, but this will work with boiled, barbecued or stir-fried chicken, too. The important thing is that no one contracts salmonella. As long as the chicken's cooked, it matters not one whit how it got that way.
(Side note: if you bake this with garlic and butter, do it in a casserole dish. Then just cut up the chicken in the dish, and dump the whole thing--chicken, chicken juices, melted butter, garlic--into the rice, as it adds to the flavor. If you boil or grill the chicken, maybe add a half-cup of chicken broth to replace the juices.)
3. Combine rice, chicken, both cans of soup, and pepper/salt/whatever. The handiest way to do this is usually to mix them all together in the pot you used to cook the rice.
4. Pour into PAM-ed baking dish (I use your standard glass casserole dish, but if you want to use your commemorative baking pan in the shape of an okapi or whatever, that's probably cool. Just grease it or butter it or spray it with PAM first, otherwise half the casserole will stick to your okapi dish.)
5. Cook at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes.
6. Eat!