Let's face it...Paula Deen has hot sons. And they are so sweet. And they can cook. What more could you want from a man? With all that being said, I have to say that I didn't love a recipe for a chicken and rice casserole from The Lady and Sons Savannah Country Cookbook.
This recipe was the October pick for my cookbook club. I thought that a Paula Deen casserole couldn't be too bad. I was surprised that there was no butter in this recipe, but there was some cheese. 
It's really a simple meal to make. There is very little prep - just cutting the onions and sauteeing them in some olive oil and making the Uncle Ben's rice. Then all of the canned ingredients (green beans, water chestnuts, and pimentos) need to be drained and rinsed and the water chestnuts chopped. Very simple prep. 
The recipe calls for three cups of chopped cooked chicken. I decided to use the white meat from a rotisserie chicken, which definitely saved me the time of roasting several breasts of chicken and waiting for them to cool enough to handle to chop. I used cream of chicken soup instead of cream of celery because my husband grabbed the wrong can at the store. (He swears that he pulled the can from the cream of celery dispenser.) The cream soup was the Campbell's 98% fat free variety. All of the ingredients get mixed together and then go into a casserole dish.
The casserole bakes for 25 minutes. What I loved best about this is that it gave me enough time to clean up the kitchen and wash the dishes so there was no clean-up left to do after we ate dinner.
When it came out of the oven, I have to say that I thought it looked pretty good. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't my favorite. I tend to cook with fresh ingredients, and I think that's why I didn't love this recipe. I detest canned green beans, but they weren't as bad in the casserole. I thought the water chestnuts just didn't go with the dish. I enjoy their texture in spinach dip but didn't like them here. 
My 20-month-old loved it and asked for a second bowl. She usually won't eat chicken, so I've learned that casseroles are the way to sneak in some extra protein. My husband said, "It tastes like something my mom would have cooked in 1986." My mother-in-law isn't a bad cook, but she tends to cook dishes like this because it's all my father-in-law will eat. When my husband told him what we were having for dinner he said, "Oh, that sounds good."
So while I'd still be happy to have a dinner date with either of the Deen boys, I would hope that they pick a different meal to make for me.
Chicken and Rice Casserole
Serves 6 to 8
3 cups diced, cooked chicken
1 medium onion, diced and sauteed
One 8-ouce can water chestnuts, drained and chopped
Two 14-ounce cans water chestnuts, drained and chopped
One 4-ounce can pimentos, rinsed and drained
One 10.5 ounce can condensed cream of celery soup
1 cup mayonnaise
One 6-ounce box of Uncle Ben's long-grain and wild rice, cooked according to package directions
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix all ingredients together and pour into a 3-quart casserole dish. Bake for 25 minutes.
0 comments:
Post a Comment