Foodie Friday: Getting Back in the Cooking Groove

--Just as I predicted, my time in the kitchen became non-existent once I started working. For the past three weeks, the entire family has been living on hot dogs, ramen, and frozen dinners. On New Year's Day, ABM and his mother rescued us by cooking a classic Southern meal: chicken, collard greens with turkey necks, cabbage, corn bread, biscuits, and his special macaroni and cheese.

After having real food on Thursday and Friday, I had to keep the streak of real food going. So I dug out one of my cookbooks and made a chicken and rice casserole. This recipe is an adaptation from one in the cookbook, Beyond Macaroni and Cheese:

1.5 cups uncooked rice
1 (10.5 oz) can cream of chicken soup
1 (10.5 oz) can broccoli cheese soup
1.5 cups milk
3 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 envelope dry onion soup mix

Basically you mix the first four ingredients together and pour them into a buttered casserole dish. Then you put the chicken pieces on top, sprinkle them with the dry onion soup mix, and cover with aluminum foil. Bake at 350 degrees for 90 minutes.

I think that you could make the casserole with whatever cream-based soup you think would make a good gravy for the chicken and rice. The original recipe called for cream of mushroom and cream of celery, but I'm trying to learn to make due with what I have. I also increased the rice by half a cup because I vaguely remember using just one cup and ending up with gravy that had a little rice in it rather than a flavored rice.

--On Sunday, I made meatloaf. My kids have stated in the past that they don't like meatloaf, but I love it. I tried to convince the twins that a meatloaf is just a giant hamburger, and I made one with the simplest recipe I could find: meat, bread crumbs, onion soup mix, egg, and little ketchup. They still thought it tasted funny, so I give up. If I want meatloaf, I'll make it for myself and cut it up for cold meatloaf sandwiches.

--Last week, I posted on my book blog about writing in my cookbooks.