I know, I know… when I started this blog it was because I was raging against recipes that were not really recipes, but rather a bunch of prepared ingredients thrown together and called a meal. I remember… and yes, it still bothers me that people call that cooking. My friend Val makes dishes like these from time to time and I love what she calls it. She says that she “assembled” it. HA! Isn’t that perfect? I love it.
Don’t get me wrong — I too love the convenience of “recipes” like that. And yeah, I have made dinners of chicken fingers and fries (with cut up veggies so there’s at least some semblance of health to the meal). It’s not that I don’t do that. It is that “assembling” as Val calls is, is not a recipe.
But why this ranty-like intro? Well, because. Tonight I made something for dinner that involves some prepared foods and – dare I admit it – even a can. The verdict? Well, I’m sharing it with you so I bet you can guess… we loved it. It was so good! Now, I’ll admit: this recipe below is a mish-mash of a few recipes I found. I made this one before, and it was at best, ok. When I stumbled upon this one, I saw some potential for improvement and so I did some tweaking. So enough with the preamble – here’s what I did:
Ingredients
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken
6 cups broccoli florets, cut into bite sized pieces
1 can “Cream of Chicken” soup
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayonaise (not salad dressing or Miracle Whip to use a brand name)
1/3 cup water
3/4 tsp lemon juice
1/2 grated cheddar (I used 2-year-old cheddar, but whatever you have is going to be perfect)
2 tbsp butter
1/4 bread crumbs
Method
- Preheat oven to 400
- Cook your chicken in a frying pan until it’s almost cooked through. It should be a little pink inside still so that it does not become dry when it goes in the oven for further cooking. Cut the partially cooked chicken into bite sized pieces and place in your baking dish. I used my corning-ware 2.8 ltr baking dish; it’s smaller than a 9×13 pan, but bigger than a 9×9. Whatever you have will be perfect, trust me!
- Gently steam your broccoli for about 2 minutes. I did this in a pot on the stove with about 2 cm’s of water on the bottom. I added the broccoli to the pot right away, turned my element to medium-high and once the water came to a boil, I gave it about 2 minutes. You’re looking for that bright green colour, and the vegetable should still be very firm. Drain the water from broccoli and add it to the casserole dish you’re using.
- Next, in a bowl combine together the can of soup, the sour cream and the mayonaise. Add the water and lemon juice and mix again. Pour this sauce over the chicken & broccoli and stir. Top with the grated cheddar.
- Melt the butter and mix it with the bread crumbs to make a nice crunchy topping. Spoon this over the top of the casserole.
- Put the casserole in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes. The sauce will be bubbly and thickened.
I served this with rice on the side, and it really was “Divan”. HA! See what I did there?!?! All right… I’m going away now.
Enjoy!
