Sunday, October 4, 2009

Nanny's Chicken Casserole

I'm gonna share something that is near and dear to my heart. This is one of my great-grandmother's (I called her Nanny) recipes. For those that don't know me that well, my Nanny was very special to me. My mom was a teen mom, and we lived with my great-grandparents (along with my mom's brother) up until I was about 13, and at that time my mom and I just moved across the street to live with her boyfriend/fiance/now common-law husband or whatever, but anyways....so growing up, there was always super yummy southern granny food on the table. A lot of these she never wrote down, so many have been lost as she got older and has since passed away (though I was very lucky to have her in my lfe until I was about 28). So the handful of her recipes that I have are very important to me, it's like preserving a special part of my past. This is by far my most favorite thing she ever made, next to her apple pie turnovers.
1 chicken (boiled and deboned. You can either boil it whole, adding enough water just to cover, or cut it in pieces and add enough water to cover. Either way, reserve the cooking liquid coz you can use it for the chicken broth that the recipe also calls for instead of canned)
1 1/2 cups chicken broth (you can use canned or just strain the chicken cooking liquid coz hey, that's chicken broth!)
1 bag herb Pepperidge Farm dressing
1 can cream of chicken
1 can cream of mushroom
1 stick butter

When chicken is done, remove from pot, reserving liquid if desired, and set aside to cool slightly. When cool enough to handle, remove from bones (discard skin and bones or save them to boil up to make even more chicken broth) and shred into large but fairly bite sized pieces. Melt butter; pour over dressing in large bowl and let sit about 10 minutes. Layer dressing, chicken, 1 can soup, and 3/4 cup broth (if using the broth from the cooked chicken, be sure to strain through a fine strainer to remove any bits and pieces); repeat layers and sprinkle with remaining dressing on top. Bake at 350 F for 35 minutes.

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