1 casserole recipe + 1 dessert recipe = a good deed

I was never that crazy about the tv show ‘Friends,’ but I know a lot of people are (were?). My husband has seen practically every episode. Sometimes when I sit down on the couch, he’s watching it, and I end up getting sucked into an episode.

So there’s this episode of “Friends” where Joey’s agent gets him a gig “co-hosting” a PBS telethon. Joey says he’s doing it because he wants to do a good deed, but Phoebe says his “good deed” is a selfish one (because it will result in him being on TV). Joey argues that all good deeds are selfish because they make the person doing them feel good, and Rachel agrees. For the rest of the episode, Phoebe sets out to prove Joey wrong -- by trying to find a true selfless deed. (For those curious, the episode is The One Where Phoebe Hates PBS.)

Not bragging here, but a few days ago, I did a good deed.

About a month ago, some good friends of ours had their first baby. We’d met them for dinner just 2 days before she went into labor. I was looking forward to meeting their new daughter, but as it turns out, I fell sick with some kind of flu/cold thing a few days after that, so I wasn’t able to visit them (without infecting them + their new baby with my virus). Soooo I waited (which was fine by me since I didn’t have a gift fully prepared yet anyway).

During the couple of weeks that passed while I was trying to get over my cold/flu/ear infection, I thought about how hard I’ve heard things are for new parents during the first few months. And this in turn made me wonder whether I should take some food (or something else?) to help out our friends who’d become new parents.

I did end up deciding to take them a meal...but had no clue as to what exactly to take. Though I’ve sometimes dropped off cupcakes or homemade bread or part of a dinner meal to some friends or a nearby neighbor, I’ve never really given a whole pre-prepared meal to someone like this.

Now, back to those friends of ours. We’ve eaten out with them a few times, but the restaurants have been ethnic, serving foods that I knew I most definitely could not replicate at home. We’ve had our friends over to our house for dinner a few times, but the meals we cooked at home weren't really the kind that can be stored and/or frozen and warmed up later.

When I lived in Iowa, I knew how (and regularly did) make a casserole or 2 or 3. And I even made a few casseroles after moving to California. But ever since I met and married my husband, casseroles have just not been a regular part of our menu.

So I was stumped. What kind of food should you take for someone who needs to prepare it later … with minimal effort?

I read on the web that lots of people bring pasta dishes for new parents, and I thought that was a great idea...until I read some comments from a few new mommies who said that, after awhile, the couple gets sick of all that pasta. I desperately wanted to avoid that scenario.

Next, I consulted my friend Laura from iGriza. She recently had a baby, and I’ve also read a few of her blog entries about cooking/recipes, so I knew she knows her way around the kitchen. Laura suggested taking something sweet (dessert) because she said that’s what she craved when she was in that phase of having no time or energy after taking care of her son.

Still at a loss as to what to make that wouldn’t be too weird or “old school,” I consulted cookbook after cookbook and paged through entire “casserole” sections in some old Quick Cooking compilation cookbooks that I had socked away. (Those cookbooks tend to feature more of the “Midwestern” style of foods -- if there is such a thing -- so I thought they’d be my best shot.) Most of the recipes I saw either looked too weird or were too focused on “meat and potatoes,” and I really wanted to make something that I felt our friends might like.

Finally, I landed on a recipe that was like green bean casserole...with chicken. I’m not sure I can say the recipe was perfect, but as a huge fan of green bean casserole, I at least felt that it might do the trick. But not before a few adjustments on my end.

So, without further adieu, here’s what I made.

Green Bean Casserole with Chicken
Note that this makes 2 casseroles, each of which serves 2-6.

Ingredients:

• 2, 4 oz packages of Rice-a-Roni long grain and wild rice (only 2/3 -- 6 oz -- of finished rice is used)
• 4 cups from a fully-cooked rotisserie style chicken, chopped
• approx 2 cups fresh green beans, cooked
• 1 can Cream of Mushroom soup
• 1 can Cream of Chicken soup
• approx 1/4 cup onions, diced
• approx 1/4 cup green peppers, diced
• 1 envelope onion soup mix
• 1 can mushrooms (pieces and stems)
• 1 1/3 cup fried onions (2/3 for each casserole dish)

Directions to cook 1st portion (unfrozen):

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. I started by preparing the wild rice boxes according to the packages. (I cooked both of my boxes in the same pot.)
3. I then cut the ends off the fresh green beans and cut them smaller (they needed to be bite size since they’d be inside the casserole). I then boiled a pot of water and cooked the green beans in the pot for about 4-6 minutes (they should turn bright green). After that, I drained the beans and set them aside. 
4. I pulled all the (good) meat off the rotisserie chicken and chopped all of it (including some pieces of skin) up on a cutting board. It ended up being a lot of chicken (about 5 cups worth).
   
   



Cut chicken (not the greatest picture, I know)

I combined the soups (undiluted), mushrooms, green beans, chicken, onion, green pepper, and soup mix in a bowl and started to stir. This is where things got...well, ugly. My bowl was too small, and the ingredients were just too...massive. So here’s where I’m gonna recommend that you not do like me and that you start with a colossal sized bowl to begin with (which is where I ended up after trying to power through...much like wading through snow up to your knees).





My itty bitty bowl

Once I had everything assembled in my massive bowl, I ran my spoon down the middle to split it into 2 portions (since it makes 2 casseroles, not just 1) and spooned the ingredients from 1 portion into an ungreased baking/casserole dish. (Incidentally, after seeing the whole thing put together, I wouldn’t be opposed to adding another cup or more of green beans next time...but that's just me.)





Bigger bowl

I then covered the casserole dish in foil and baked it at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, I removed the foil and sprinkled 2/3 cup fried onions over the top and then cooked it an additional 5 minutes (or until the fried onions look "golden").

Completed dish

Since this makes 2 casseroles, you could make 1 right away (like I did) and freeze the remaining mixture for a future meal or even freeze both of them.  If freezing, follow the directions below for cooking.

Directions to cook 2nd portion (frozen):

1. Thaw the mixture in the fridge. About 30 minutes before baking, remove it from the fridge.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
3. Cover and bake the 2nd portion at 350 degrees for 60-65 minutes (or until heated all the way through). 
4. Remove the foil and sprinkle the remaining 2/3 cup fried onions over the top and then cook it an additional 5 minutes (or until the fried onions look "golden").

Update 1/19/2012:  I made this recipe again last night with a few more slight modifications, and it was just  as delish! This time, I left out the chopped onion and green peppers, cut up the canned mushrooms a bit so they were in smaller pieces, and also used 2 lbs of regular chicken (instead of pre-cooked rotisserie chicken) which I cooked in about 1-2 Tablespoons of olive oil. (I chopped the chicken into small pieces before cooking it.)  Also, forgot to mention earlier that the original recipe called for frozen green beans (instead of fresh ones), so if you're short on time, you might want to consider that short cut.

Since my friend Laura suggested that I take something sweet, in addition to the casserole, I also made (and baked) some Deep Dish Cookie Pies (recipe), the recipe for which I’d recently pinned through pinterest.

With the Deep Dish Cookie Pies recipe, the only deviations that I did were 2 things:

• I used all light brown sugar (instead of some dark brown sugar and some light brown sugar), and I only did that because I just didn’t have any dark brown sugar on hand at home.
• When I pulled the ramekins out of the oven, the middle portion tasted a bit “goopy” to me, so I ended up throwing them back in the oven and cooking them for another 7-10 minutes to ensure I wasn’t serving my friends something that could potentially make them sick. (I’m sure it wouldn’t...but I sometimes worry about serving new recipes to friends.)

After I finished baking the Deep Dish Cookie Pies, I put them in some food storage containers in preparation for taking them to our friends' house.

If I lost you somewhere after the 2 recipes...bummer. If you’re still reading because you want to know what happened with my good deed...great (and read on)!

When I reached our friends’ house, it turned out that their new daughter had woken them up every couple of hours the night before, and from the looks on our their faces, they were a bit worn out. To make a long story short, I did a good thing. I gave our friends at least 1 less meal that they had to figure out themselves. And doing that good thing...felt good.

As to good deeds (and mine in particular), I’m gonna have to side with Joey on this one: I’m not sure there’s such a thing as a selfless good deed because even a simple “thank you” makes the doer feel good. And, unlike Phoebe, I value the recognition and appreciation that come from any efforts I take to do something nice for someone else.

(Ya see what I did here? I made this short “story” about a simple recipe into a looonnnggg story.)