Foodie Friday -- Potato Chip Casserole

I started writing this blog on Thursday, got busy on Friday and never finished it other than the title.

Here's the dealio:

Casseroles are comfort food. Most casseroles can be thrown together from the stuff you have in your cabinet.

And if you don't have soup, then make a roux with equal amounts of flour and butter, cook it for a minute or two and add milk, but keep it on the thick side. If you add too much milk, cook it down. If you want it to be chicken flavored, add some concentrated chicken base and some chicken. For cream of mushroom soup, add diced mushrooms.

It's not that hard.

BUT a couple cans of cream of whatever soup in your cabinet will almost NEVER hit the expiration date. Jus' sayin'.

Casseroles tend to be non-measuring recipes. Chop a little of this. Add a little of that. And bake at 350 degrees for anytime between 40-60 min.

If it calls for potato chips, but you have tortilla chips, then by all means go for it. If it works, woohoo! and if it doesn't then you've fed your family for one meal.

If you use fresh vegetables: many of them need time to cook into softness (celery, carrots, onions, potatoes), so chop/slice/dice them into smaller than normal pieces.

Also fresh vegetables are full of liquid--which means your casserole will have excess liquid when it starts cooking.

Have you ever made sautéed or creamed spinach? You take a huge bag of spinach and sauté it in butter and garlic only to end up with about a cup of the final product? Yeah, like that.

So when you make a casserole think of the flavor profile you want to end up with. Try not to get totally freaky-deaky with it, but have fun. You don't want to add so much of one thing that it overpowers the combination.

All righty then, you've waited long enough for this recipe.

Potato Chip Casserole

Cooked and cubed chicken
celery, thinly sliced
green onions, thinly sliced
mushrooms, diced
black olives, chopped,
can of Cream of chicken soup
Milk
Shredded cheese
crushed potato chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the first five ingredients in bowl. Add soup, and add about 1/2 soup can of milk. Mix together. Spray or lightly oil 9-inch square pan with vegetable oil.

Add 1/2 of mixture, sprinkle layer of cheese, crush a layer of potato chips. Repeat.

Place in oven for40-60 minutes, or until brown and bubbly. You might want to check it at the 30 minute mark to see how your oven is cooking it.

Enjoy!

Tips & tricks:

• don't a too many onions if your family is cranky about onions--oops!
• be sure to cook long enough so veggies aren't crunchy -- oops!
• leave out any ingredient family hates-- yay! they don't like olives, so I left them out. I like olives, but I guess Mom doesn't get a say in all this!
• don't be afraid to experiment--I thought about making a Mexican casserole with taco meat, ranch-style beans and Rotel tomatoes and layering it with crushed tortilla chips and cheese. If you try it, let me know how it works!
• Not a fan of tuna, but I overheard one lady making a tuna potato chip casserole.
• I wanted to make an Italian casserole, but I would have to experiment with uncooked pasta noodles to see if it would work. I have a feeling the dry ones would need a lot of liquid, but there are frozen and fresh noodles I could try.

Add your own twist to it. It's winter season, time for comfort food!

Later, Peeps!