Liza's Chicken

Well, I am making progress. I have all the fixings prepped for 1 BIG casserole that I plan to assemble and freeze tomorrow. See the recipe for "Liza's Chicken" below. Growing up, my sister used to request this casserole for her birthday dinner.

It has been a couple years since I have made this dish, mainly because of the ingredients in it that I now try to avoid. So here's what I am doing differently now...

I made a big batch of homemade condensed cream soups the other day (an effort to avoid msg). I bought a box of fresh mushrooms for cream of mushroom and a bunch of celery for cream of celery. I made a double batch of each kind, so that should be the equivalent of 4 cans of each. (Somehow I ended up with a little bit more cream of celery than cream of mushroom. Maybe the mushroom one just cooked off more when I was heating it and letting it thicken). I have used this recipe before for cream of chicken, using all butter - no oil, and using organic chicken Better than Bouillon paste and been very pleased. Usually cream soups gross me out, but these taste so good I actually want to lick the rubber spatula. You can tell a difference! Now I am happy that I will have some extra of each kind frozen in ziplocs for future healthy casseroles in the coming months.

The recipe below also calls for Pepperidge Farm herb stuffing, but I have used other chicken flavored kinds before, such as the 89 cent box from Aldi. This time I am attempting to make my own out of homemade croutons from leftover bread ends with poultry seasoning added.

I made this dish (the cheap and easy way) for a friend who had a baby back in May, and she requested the recipe the next day... so I thought I would share it here, too:

Liza's Chicken

4 chicken breasts, cooked and cut up
8 oz. medium egg noodles, cooked
1/4 lb. butter, melted
1 can celery soup
1 can mushroom soup
1/2 c. sour cream
Pepperidge Farm herb stuffing
Jane's Krazy Mixed-Up Salt (or Mrs. Dash)

Grease bottom of 9x13 inch casserole dish. Put in noodles and sprinkle melted butter over noodles. Sprinkle with Jane's Krazy Salt (this is an important ingredient) and then layer chicken. Mix soups and sour cream. Spread over chicken and put Pepperidge Farm stuffing on top. Top with some additional pieces of butter and bake for 1 hour at 325 degrees.