Funeral Potatoes

I've had a nice break from cooking dinner. I guess it was only one night, but somehow it seems longer. I had Bunco last night, so I got a pizza at Walmart for the husband and boy to eat since I prefer to overeat at Bunco and not having dinner before that helps me overindulge. ;) I had planned on making shrimp dip, but I couldn't find the cream of shrimp soup for it. I had already bought the potato chips for it, so I quickly tried to come up with another idea while at Walmart that would use the potato chips. Nothing came to me, so I called Jen B. because I'm completely dependent on her and can't make a decision on my own to save my life. She said save the potato chips and use them for Funeral Potatoes or Potato Chip Chicken (which I call White Trash Chicken). So, I did. I ended up getting spinach dip to take instead.

Now, I've been eating these potatoes for as long as I can remember because my grandma has always made them, only she calls it Hashbrown Casserole. Jen B. makes this and calls it Potluck Potatoes. She was talking to our friend Laura about the recipe, and it turns out Laura calls them Funeral Potatoes. While kind of morbid, I think it's funny, so that's what I'm dubbing them now.

We're having french dips as our main course which I don't think really warrants typing out a recipe since I just use deli roast beef, french rolls, and a packet of au just. I'm pretty excited for french dips, we haven't had them in a looooooooooooong time because I can never find roast beef on sale for a decent price. Sprouts, however, came through for me last week. I've been closely monitoring the roast beef every day to make sure it's still good. I think the sell by date on it was yesterday, so I'm pretty comfortable using it tonight. Funeral Potatoes is kind of a weird side dish I realize, but they sound good, and I don't really have occassion to make them later in the week with any of the dinners I've planned. Yeah, yeah, I could wait until next week and plan a dinner around them, but I'd rather just have them tonight. Which reminds me I need to get going on them since they have to bake for an hour.

Funeral Potatoes
2 lb. bag of diced, frozen, country-style potatoes
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese, divided
1 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
1 can of Cream of Chicken soup
1/2 yellow onion, diced finely
1 Tablespoon of dried, minced onion
1 teaspoon of paprika
1 teaspoon of garlic powder
1 stick of melted butter
Salt and pepper to taste
Cooking Spray

For topping:
1/2 cup of crushed corn flakes
1/2 cup of crushed plain, potato chips
4 Tablespoons of melted butter

Directions:
1) Coat 9 x 13 glass casserole dish with cooking spray and set aside.
2) In a large bowl, combine diced potatoes, sour cream, 1/2 cup of shredded cheese, soup, yellow onion, dried minced onions, garlic powder, paprika, melted butter, and salt and pepper to taste.
3) Once thoroughly combined, spread in an even layer in the casserole dish. Sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup of shredded cheese on top.
4) For topping: In a separate bowl, combine crushed potato chips, crushed corn flakes, and melted butter. Sprinkle mixture evenly over top of potatoes and cheese.
5)Bake at 350 degrees, for 1 hour (uncovered).

Creamy Chicken Casserole

I just got an angry call from Jen B. wondering if I had given up on my blog. I told her no, I've just been lazy and really all I'm doing at this point is trying to come up with ways to get this kid out of me sooner rather than later. I'm so done being pregnant. Cooking and updating the blog both require energy and motivation, and those just aren't things I really have anymore these days. But, I'll try to do better these last couple weeks until baby gets here since I'll have a hiatus after that.

So, like I said in my preivous post, we had some family issues last week, so I didn't do a whole lot of dinner cooking. I did however make this casserole last Monday night I think it was (before the drama started), so I'll start with that. It was in one of my Southern Living cookbooks, and I had written a note by it at some point saying "Really good, really easy." Sweet...I'll take both of those things when it comes to dinners! That's why I love making notes in my cookbooks. Who knows when it was I made it, and it might have gone overlooked had it not been for my note to myself.

Creamy Chicken Casserole
3 cups chopped cooked chicken
1 can cream of chicken soup, undiluted
8 ounces sour cream
1 Tbsp poppy seeds
1-1/2 cups crushed round buttery crackers (40 crackers...I used Ritz)
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted

Combine first four ingredients; spoon into a lightly greased 11x7 baking dish. Combine crushed crackers and butter, and sprinkle over chicken mixture. Bake, uncovered, at 350 for 30 minutes.

*****

Totally easy, see? Definitely somehwat of a trash-erole, but then don't all casseroles have a hint of that by their very nature? We all really liked it. I like finding casserole recipes for 11x7 pans because then you're not eating for a whole week, it's a manageable amount. This is definitely one I'll try to get in rotation since we all liked it, and it's quick and cheap to prepare. It would be a great use for leftover cooked chicken!

Jen's Crockpot Creamy Ranch Chicken

Tonight's dinner is brought to you courtesy of my friend Jen A. I don't know if that's really the right way to word it...she sent me the recipe after they had it for dinner recently. I thought it sounded really good, and I didn't need to buy that many ingredients for it.

My dinner schedule got all wonky this week, and I almost missed out on making this because I got sucked in to Facebook this afternoon. I should back up. My friend Jen B. and I both got haircuts today. The boy and I went over to her house this morning, and I stayed with our crazy bobo boys while she went and got her hair cut, then she came and stayed with them while I went. Beautiful system really. By the time the boy and I got home it was after 1:00 (naptime), but he insisted he was still hungry, despite feasting on hot dog, mandarin oranges, and tortilla chips at Jen's. So I got him some more to eat, put him down for his nap, then played on Facebook. Really it wasn't that long--I swear!! I was also uploading pictures to the Walgreens website to get printed, so I needed something to do while I was waiting for that process. See? I can just about always justify my Facebook obsession. ;) Anyway, I remembered around 2:20 (done with Facebook at that point, getting ready to watch 90210 from this past Tuesday--while I worked on getting stuff ready to shred...see, I'm ALWAYS productive. Always.) that dinner was supposed to be via crockpot tonight and kind of panicked since I remembered reading it was an almost six hour recipe. Thankfully that was on low, so I just bumped the heat up to high. But now I'm getting ahead of myself.

Jen's Crockpot Creamy Ranch Chicken
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 Tbs butter, melted
1 can cream of chicken soup
8 oz cream cheese, cubed
1/2 c chicken broth
1 (1oz)packet ranch dressing mix
1/4 tsp minced garlic
1 dash paprika
1/8 tsp dry oregano
1/4 tsp dry parsley flakes

Wash and dry chicken breasts and place them evenly in crock pot. Sprinkle with paprika. Sprinkle ranch salad dressing mix over chicken. Drizzle chicken breasts with 1 tablespoons melted butter. Cover and cook on low for 4 hours.

Melt remaining 1 tablespoon butter with minced garlic and saute slightly. Add cream of chicken soup,cream cheese cubes, 1/2 c chicken broth, dried oregano and dried Parsley flakes. Stir on med til smooth. Add mixture to crock pot, cover again and continue to cook on low for 1 1/2-2 hours.

*****

When I took the lid off to add in the sauce, the chicken smelled really yummy. I was wishing I had a whisk clean to mix up the sauce, but both of mine were in the dishwasher. I also eyeballed the chicken broth because both of my liquid measuring cups were in the dishwasher as well. Can you tell I need to run my dishwasher?

I hope it turns out. I have trouble with chicken in the crockpot...it always comes out dry. My fingers are crossed either it doesn't this time or the sauce helps it seem more moist. Jen said it was good with egg noodles, but I'm going to make rice instead. I also need to check what frozen veggies are in my freezer to have along with it.

Oh, and like I said, I did the first step for two hours on high instead of four on low. I bumped it down to low when I added the sauce, but I figured I'd check the chicken after an hour to see how cooked it was, in case I needed to move it back up to high.