The Faudie Can Do All-'merican

Yes, Gentle Reader, feel free to nail my arse to the wall for being a total hypocrite. I can make all-American meals. And can there be any more All-American a meal than a casserole?

Okay, yes, casserole is of French origin, but slather that sucker with Campbell's cream of whatever, and that's akin to sticking an American flag in that dish and singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" while serving it.

(Pardon me for the digression, but does anyone else remember as fondly as I do that faboo scene in National Lampoon's European Vacation in which the Griswolds attempt to order French food in French and are surreptitiously served Budget Gourmet or some other brand of microwave crap and then stick toothpicks topped with French flags atop the slop before serving it? Of all the things a person can find on YouTube, she or he can't find that clip. But I did find the scene that precedes it. Enjoy!)



Another No-Fuss Meal
There comes a time in every faudie's and foodie's life when she looks inside her 'fridge, sees the plethora of ingredients from previous culinary misadventures that, if not used soon, will go to waste. I had one of those moments Wednesday night after supper and contemplated how I could get rid of, say, that damn Wally World beef broth (there's something that's going to go down the drain, I tell ya) or that half-fullish carton of Pacific low-sodium chicken broth beside it. Taking into account those lingering, soon-to-go-to-waste ingredients and other just-taking-up-space ingredients in the pantry along with the boy's recent repeated laments to have "normal" food, I started to cull through my recipe box to see what I could find.

You can already guess, Gentle Reader, that I found a casserole recipe--a creamy chicken and rice casserole recipe to be precise. Although I managed not to record the source for it, I seem to recall jotting it down from one of my Weight Watchers recipe books or magazines. There's something about it that screams, "I came from a Weight Watchers publication targeting women who want to make family-friendly meals without doing a whole lotta work!" A quick review of the ingredients needed and what I had on hand told me I could make it up relatively quickly and relatively close to the original--but it would require a culinary misadventure.

And I wouldn't be a faudie if I backed away from a culinary misadventure!

Clean Out la Cuisine Creamy Chicken & Rice Casserole1 1/2 C long-grain brown rice (or however much rice you might have left in a lingering bag of rice, taking the place of a 6.9-ounce package of low-sodium chicken-flavored rice and vermicelli mix with chicken broth and herb flavors)
2 3/4 C low-sodium fat-free chicken broth (taking the place of 2 1/4 C hot water and 1 T margarine)
1 1/2 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cubed (along with about 1/2 C leftover HEB seasoned shredded chicken for tacos and burritos)
4 oz. no-salt-added sliced mushroom pieces and stems (replacing 1 C presliced 'shrooms, 'cuz the boys hate 'shrooms)
1/2 t garlic powder
3/4 C fat-free sour cream
1/4 t pepper
10.5 oz. low-fat, low-sodium cream of chicken soup (replacing 10.75 oz. low-fat, low-sodium cream of mushroom soup)
1/4 C crushed fat-free brown rice crackers (replacing 1/4 C crushed multigrain crackers)

1. Throw the rice and chicken broth in a pressure cooker to halve the cooking time.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. Saute chicken, mushrooms and garlic powder in skillet until the chicken is nicely browned (or at least no longer pink and potentially lethal to diners). Stir in sour cream, cream of chicken soup and pepper.
4. Place rice in 2-quart or larger (but not too large) casserole dish, preferably coated with cooking spray.
5. Mindfully spoon the chicken gloop over the rice, combining the two carefully so the rice is coated well and you don't spill any over the edge of the dish.
6. Sprinkle cracker crumbs atop chicken and rice gloop.
7. Cover and bake 15 to 35 minutes--or until the family gets home and makes their hunger and impatience known.

Here's the nutrition info from the original recipe, but it's not entirely accurate since I didn't follow the recipe:
Serving size: 1 1/3 C
Calories: 334
Fat: 6.8 g
Saturated fat: 1.6 g
Protein: 32.2 g
Carbs: 30 g
Fiber: 0.2 g
Cholesterol: 68 mg
Na: 678 mg

The original recipe calls for an additional tablespoon of margarine and 1/2 teaspoon of poppy seeds to be combined with the multigrain crackers to make the crumb topping. Since I didn't have the multigrain crackers in the first place, I sure wasn't going to run to the big HEB to the east to pick up some poppy seeds, especially since my goal was, after all, to get rid of some ingredients.

As I did the other night, I sauted some frozen sugar snap peas and stew mix veggies to accompany the casserole. I thought the chicken and rice needed some veggies or else it might look awfully...blonde and all-'merican on the plate. Not that serving basic veggies did anything to make the meal terribly exotic....

All-'merican, but still pretty darn tasty, if I do say so myself.

Brown Rice Under Pressure
Since I knew I didn't have 40 minutes to whip prepare the brown rice, I decided I'd press my luck with my Fagor pressure cooker--which I've been wanting to use (to make carrot halwa)--and use it. I got really lucky in that my rice-to-liquid ratio was just about right, but I feared nevertheless that my rice would end up dry and crunchy because I've yet to make slow-cook brown rice that didn't turn out this way thanks to the liquid boiling off way too soon.

I think the pressure cooker prevented that potential disaster because the pressure and reduced cooking time allowed the rice to absorb the liquid just right. Hooray for Fagor! Hooray for flavorful brown rice that isn't crunchy!

Not that crunchy rice couldn't have been addressed by baking in the gloop made from 3/4 of a cup of sour cream and almost 11 ounces of cream of chicken soup. But, hey, I didn't have to worry about a fix, now did I? Woohoo!

Hmmm, I guess if I didn't have to worry about a fix, then this adventure doen't qualify as a culinary misadventure, does it? Gads, I'd better have me a real good disaster dans ma cuisine quick before you, Gentle Reader, nail my arse to the wall for no longer being a faudie!

Many thanks to the Photoshop wizardry of the husband for creating my all-'merican icon at the top of the post!