Feeling better and a new recipe!

 I was able to cook the last few nights but nothing noteworthy. I discovered a bag of stuffing in the cupboard and there were two chicken breasts in the fridge. Perfect! Every recipe I found called for Cream of Chicken soup and celery, neither of which I had but braved the Easter crowd at the store and picked them up with some needed milk as well. Here is what I used:

Chicken Stuffing Casserole (off the cuff cooking).

 9x13 baking dish, sprayed with cooking oil or greased

2 chicken breasts diced 

1 tbl Ranch Dressing

1/2 c milk (divided)

1/2 tsp rosemary (pounded mine in a mortar and pestle until it was mostly dust)

1/2 tsp ground sage

1/4 tsp salt&pepper

1 bag basic stuffing, whatever you want to use.

1 stick unsalted butter divided

1/2 c chicken stock

1 can Cream of Chicken soup

 1/2 c mixed veggies

Dried parsley for garnish after cooking.

Here's what I did:

Started with dicing up the chicken into half inch or smaller pieces putting it in a good size bowl, sprinkled some salt and pepper, mixed thoroughly then thought about a marinade.... milk .... nope, Ranch dressing, only about a tablespoon mixed in well. Okay, I added some milk as well then popped it in the fridge covered with plastic wrap. 

Chopped up one rib of celery and half an onion then started to dice up a carrot only to remember I was putting some mixed veggies in. Oh well, so half a large carrot diced.

 

 

So the stuffing recipe calls for carrots, celery and onion softened in a pan with a 1/4 cup of butter. Okay.... then remembered the other recipe that said to add in the chicken. So I did that and cooked it sufficiently so the chicken was mostly cooked through (smelled wonderful!), I also added rosemary and some sage to the chicken before cooking it. So that got a bit cooked more and I remembered the cream of chicken soup, tossed that in and because I didn't want to look at the recipe just added about a  1/4 c of milk. Stirred that all together thoroughly and tossed in about a half cup of mixed veggies. Stir again until those are warmed through.

 Mixed the stuffing as best I could remember because...was not in the mood to look at directions. Used 1/4 c of the butter melted and then realized I needed the chicken stock and only poured maybe 1/4 but needed to be lots more than that. Spread half the stuffing on the bottom of the dish, spoon the chicken mix onto that and then use the remainder of the stuffing on top. I felt it was a bit dry and drizzled more chicken stock on it, covered with foil and put in oven for 30 minutes at 350. Timer goes off, take foil off dish and cook for another ten minutes.  

Let cool slightly before serving.

 

Here's what did wrong and what I'm going to do differently next time:

The stuffing was very dry because I didn't follow the directions. Find a recipe for the chicken part and follow it. Overall it turned out delicious but it was a bit dry. 

I was originally just make the stuffing and the chicken then put the stuffing on top and bake it but double guessed myself. 

Because of the amount of stuffing you really do need to do top and bottom or you get way more top crust then chicken filling. 

Use peas and carrots mix only (mixed veggies are good for certain things but I don't like green beans and lima beans in a pie/casserole) and add the onion and celery to the stuffing as directed as well as using it in the chicken mix. 

When I attempt this again it will be more creamy I suspect because this was good, but not a lot of 'sauce'.

So it's a do again for sure, just need to tweak it a bit. Happy Easter!