Chicken Divan with Asparagus

 

When there’s a rotisserie chicken in the fridge and it’s a super busy week we tend to default to chicken green bean casserole.  Known here on the blog as curried chicken casserole.  Or Miz Lou’s chicken casserole.  It’s a family favorite.  I was ready for some nice, quick alternatives.  Turns out this is a great one.  Particularly when it’s served over rice and the sauce recipe is doubled so it can go into my favorite chicken lemon rice soup! 

This meal was so quick to make that I felt like I’d started cooking too early!  And, it was good!  Now, of course I didn’t follow the recipe.  Yes, I remain in the camp of a recipe is a suggestion.  No reason to not make changes in my book!

The original recipe called for chopping the asparagus and briefly sauteeing it then building the sauce on top of it and then adding the chicken.  Finally you put the cheese on top and pop the whole saucepan in the oven.  One, I didn’t want the asparagus to cook that long.  Two, I wanted a prettier dish.  And, three, I wanted the extra sauce for the soup. 

This will be a regular for us.  LOL, well as regular as any recipe ever is!

Ingredients:

1 lb thick asparagus, bottoms snipped

Olive oil sprayer

3 T butter

3 T flour

1 ½ c chicken stock or broth

1 T heavy cream

Juice of ½ lemon

2 slices chicken per serving

1 ½ c shredded mozzarella cheese

½ c cooked rice per person

 

Directions: 

Place the asparagus on a roasting pan in one layer.  Spray it lightly with olive oil.  Roast it for 5 minutes at 400F.  

In a saucepan on medium heat, melt the butter.  Add in the flour and stir well.  Let it cook for a few minutes to remove the raw taste.  Slowly stir in the chicken stock and stir regularly until it’s thickened.  Add in the lemon juice and the cream.  I also added in a cup of the shredded mozzarella.  

Lay the chicken slices on top of the roasted asparagus.  Spoon over some of the sauce.  Top with the rest of the shredded mozzarella and a little sprinkle of thyme for color.  Broil until the cheese is melted. 

On your dinner places, put a scoop of rice in the middle and top with some of the sauce.  Then, top that with the asparagus and chicken.  Serve.

adapted from 150 Things to Make with Roast Chicken by Tony Rosenfeld

 

A Good Week for Cooking!

 

Blogging has been way down my list over the last couple of years.  Life has been busy and interesting.  I’ll not go into all the details except to say we’re hoping for a MUCH better 2023! 

Over the last couple of years we’ve had way too much carryout and not enough good old-fashioned home cooking.  Hopefully that will also improve in 2023.  At least over the last week it has.  We’ve made four new recipes, four old favorites and one blast from the past.  How did it go?  Well, one of the misperceptions I find is that folks assume since I’m a good enough cook I don’t have many failures.  And, truly I don’t wind up with many two’s.  But, I do have failures.  Usually they’re ok enough to eat the meal.  But, then the leftovers wind up in the trash.  Last week we had two such failures.  I’d read a recipe for a lemon/orzo/chickpea/spinach soup.  It sounded fresh and wonderful.  It wasn’t.  I listed it as “blah to the max.”  Then, there were the mussels.  Enough for a meal after we used some for cioppino.  Another blah to the max. 

Fortunately the other two new recipes were REALLY good.  One was the aforementioned cioppino from Taste of Home.  Another was a Monte Cristo sandwich – made with a Bisquick mix from Betty Crocker Right Size Recipes.  Then the blast from the past was a tomato basil soup.  I think it was my mom’s recipe.  It’s in a “cookbook” of recipes I put together about 15 years ago and has no provenance listed.  It’ll be a regular in our rotation going forward.  Particularly since I now know it can be served warm equally successfully.  And, last but certainly not least were the old favorites:  cauliflower cheese soup and barley vegetable soup, both from Park Tudor Treasures.  Plus Alex Guarnaschelli’s French Onion Soup with Short Ribs and a Kate’s creation chicken pot pie.

Let’s start with the Tomato Basil Soup since it’s SO very easy!

Tomato Basil Soup

Ingredients:

28 oz can of crushed tomatoes

½ c half and half

16 oz chicken stock

½ package basil ( we used about a handful of leaves)

½- 1 t sugar

 

Directions:

Combine everything in a food processor and process until smooth.  Refrigerate for a couple of hours to allow the flavors to blend.  You can serve this either cold or hot.

 

Chicken Pot Pie

 

Ingredients:

Shredded rotisserie chicken

Potatoes, diced and parcooked

Carrots, diced and parcooked

Mushrooms, diced and sauteed

Can of cream of chicken soup

Cream

Dry Sherry

Thyme

Gruyere cheese, shredded

Pie crust

 

Directions:

This is  one where you just need to put together whatever veggies you want with the chicken.  We were out of peas or they’d have gone in.  No parsnips either.  It’s pretty much a clean up the kitchen dish.  

You’ll want to dump the soup into a small saucepan.  Pour in about a quarter of a cup of sherry.  Then, enough cream to make a nice sauce.  Or less sherry and more cream.  Toss in about a couple of teaspoons of thyme.  Or whatever herb trips your trigger.  Then, a handful of the shredded gruyere.  Let that melt and toss in the chicken and whatever veggies you’ve cooked.  Pour everything into a pie crust lined casserole dish.  Crimp the edges of the crust and bake at 350 until the crust is nice and brown. 

 

Spicy Fresh Seafood Cioppino 

Ingredients: 

5 garlic cloves, minced

2 T olive oil

1 24 oz can tomato basil pasta sauce

1 8 oz bottle clam juice

1 c dry white wine or chicken broth (I used the wine)

Salt and pepper

1 t sugar

Crushed red pepper flakes to taste

1 t thyme

1 lb fresh littleneck clams (I was stuck with canned)

1 lb fresh mussels, scrubbed and beards removed

1 lb uncooked medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

1 lb uncooked bay scallops (I used a seafood medley from Trader Joes that also include calamari rings)

1 6 oz package baby spinach

 

Directions: 

Saute the garlic in the olive oil.  Do not let in brown.  Add in the pasta sauce, clam juice, wine and seasonings.  Allow it to simmer for 10 minutes.  Add in the seafood and cook until the shrimp is pink and the mussels and clams have opened.  Toss any that do not open!  Add in the spinach and stir to wilt it just a bit. Adapted from Taste of Home.  

We made another of our old favorites recently.  It's Alex Guarnaschelli's French Onion Soup with Short Ribs.  It's a long, complicated recipe and is totally worth the time it takes.  For me it pretty much sets the standard.  But, I'm not going to try and add the recipe to the blog.  Here are our photos:

LOTS of garlic in with the onions

The recipe calls for Korean short ribs but they're hard to find so I instant pot traditional short ribs.

Alex calls for 1/2 cup of shredded gruyere on each crouton.  She's exactly right!

You put the onion short rib mix on top of a handful of shredded gruyere.

Then, you pour in this magnificent broth.  

And, top it with a lovely broiled cheesy crouton of French bread.  Heavenly!

 

 

Cherry Chicken Salad

Connie isn't terribly fond of fruit.  Soup, fruit and corn.  That's pretty much his no-go list.  I could live on soup.  Mom's minestrone in particular.  But, I also love fruit and corn.  So, tonight when our cart at Costco looked like a Fruitopia, he wasn't amused.  Pears, peaches, cherries, clementines and red grapes all came home with us.  What are you going to make with all of that???  That was the question of the evening. 

I'd decided to make the cherry tabouleh I made last year.  But, we got home and didn't have cucumbers or parsley.  Most of my herbs are producing well.  Except for the parsley.  I'd bought a rotisserie chicken thinking I'd just go ahead and slice some to go with the tabouleh.  How about chicken salad with cherries instead?  Off to eatyourbooks.com and I found a plethora of such recipes.  Many called for tarragon.  Which I don't have.  A few called for dill.  Which I have in abundance.  I read all the ingredients in all the recipes and decided on my own recipe.  Which was fabulous if I do say so myself!

Cherry Chicken Salad
makes 4 good-sized sandwiches

Ingredients:

1 large chicken breast, cooked and chopped
2 ribs celery, diced
1 cup cherries, pitted and quartered
3/4 c walnuts, toasted and chopped
1 shallot, minced
1/4 c sour cream
1/2 c mayonnaise (or more to taste)
2 fronds fresh dill, minced
onion buns or bread, toasted or not

Three Cheese Chicken Casserole

Sunday dinner.  First we had to cook down the crabapples.  Now, that's a fun story :-)  Then, we had to make slices of happiness.  Done.  Now, what to fix?  Raw lamb shoulder made into Tandoori Style Lamb?  Nope, no yogurt.  Well, then, how about the cooked lamb?  Ummm, no yogurt to make tzatziki sauce.  Well, then, there's a rotisserie chicken in the fridge downstairs.  Great, we'll make Chicken Elegante.  Umm, no frozen chopped broccoli.  Did I use the chutney in the fridge?  It'd make great chicken salad?  Chutney was there but chicken salad wasn't happening.  Probably because the greens for the base of the salad were at work... Well, now, we were not having any luck here, were we?  How about the fried salami sandwiches from 5 in 5?  The provolone is at the office.  The salami and peppers and ciabatta are at home.  But, alas, not the provolone. Fine, we'll make chicken green bean casserole.  Except there's no cream of chicken soup.  We do, however have cream of mushroom soup.  And, leftover mushrooms.  Maybe I could find another casserole...

Yeah, so you're probably wondering about the crabapples.  They're pesky little things.  About halfway between a raisin and a grape.  And, we have a zillion of them.  Three crabapple trees.  So, one evening we got home and grabbed an old sheet from the junque pile.  It went onto the ground below the best bearing crab apple.  Then, we started shaking the tree.  And, grabbing handfuls of crabapples from the tree.  Finally, our arms wore out.  We didn't feel like we had many crabapples.  Then, we picked up our haul.  Maybe we could cook down the whole mess?  Until I checked online and found out that the leaves and stems have a toxic substance when consumed in large amounts.  So, it was time to pick out the leaves and stems.  To the deck we went.  Here's what this all looked like. 

Now, the crabapples have been cooked down with just enough water to cover. I've got about five cups of juice that I'll cook with sugar and turn into crabapple jelly.  But, that's for tomorrow!  Into the fridge with the crabapple juice and on with dinner.

Hunting thru my scanned recipes I found one from Taste of Home called Three Cheese Chicken Bake.  Not only did (and do) I have peppers from the garden to use up but there were leftover sautéed mushrooms from Saturday evening.  And, there was cottage cheese in the fridge to use up.  And, a half a bag of wide egg noodles.  Perfect.  Along the way I added a good dose of dry sherry.  And, I put in a whole medium onion and the equivalent of a large green bell pepper instead of the half cup the recipe called for.  Oh, and I still had that box of Corn Flakes.  Corn Flakes and garlic butter instead of buttered bread crumbs - Yum!  Maybe if I could have that for breakfast I'd eat cereal!

What did we think?  We loved this.  I know there are some really wonderful casseroles out there.  Maybe even some we could call elegant.  This is not elegant.  This is good, old-fashioned comfort food.  This will go into our regular rotation. 

Three Cheese Chicken Bake

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 T olive oil
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 8 oz can sliced mushrooms, drained (or better yet, 8 oz button mushrooms, sliced and sautéed)
1 2 oz jar chopped pimentos
2 t dried basil
1/4 c dry sherry (not cooking sherry!)
4 oz - 8 oz wide egg noodles, cooked and drained
3 c cooked chicken, diced
2 c ricotta or cottage cheese
2 c shredded cheddar cheese
1 c shredded Parmesan, divided
1 c Corn Flakes, crushed
2 T butter, melted
1/2 t garlic powder

Directions:

Sautee the onion and green pepper in the olive oil.  Once they're softened, set the pan aside and allow them to cool a bit.  Heat your oven to 350.  In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients through the cheddar cheese.  Add 1/2 c of the Parmesan.  Mix just until it's all mixed together.  The recipe actually calls for mixing the sauce first then mixing it in with the noodles, chicken etc.  I didn't do that because it meant another dirty bowl...  Pour the mixture into a baking dish.  Top it first with the rest of the shredded Parmesan, then the crushed corn flakes, then drizzle it with the garlic butter.  Bake for 40 minutes.

adapted from Taste of Home