Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Night Before Grocery Day Casserole

Where is everyone? I need new recipes. I'm getting bored enough to start experimenting, and that doesn't always turn out well. This, however, did.

As the name suggests, this is what I made tonight when we didn't have any food. You will need:

1 box of cheap, slimy, nasty, pre-packaged macaroni and cheese (Kroger Value Brand. $0.35. Woot!)
3 Tablespoons butter or margarine
1/3 cup milk (Or more. Eyeball it.)
5 frozen chicken tenders (about a pound)
1 cup frozen chopped broccoli
Extra-sharp cheddar cheese

1) Boil water, add macaroni and cook according to directions. Or accidentally throw away the box, don't worry about it, and cook it until it's finished and completely ignore the directions for macaroni and cheese.
2) While macaroni is cooking, thaw the chicken and then cook it. I threw mine on the George Foreman grill. A pan also works. I guess you could boil it, but I think it takes out all the taste.
3) In a bowl, whisk together the creepy pseudo-cheese mix packet, butter, milk, and broccoli.
4) Spray a baking dish with cooking spray and dump in the drained macaroni. Shred chicken and add to the dish. Then pour the creepy cheese mixture over your pasta and chicken, stir a little, and then grate some real cheese over the top. Put it in the oven at 400 degrees until it's bubbly and looks gourmet.

This actually turned out really well. It was good, and reminded me of the chicken penne dish I've gotten at Applebee's that I paid $8 for. It's a great way to stretch macaroni and cheese. I seriously considered chopping up the lone hot dog we had in the refrigerator, but I thought that might be overkill on the poor-man casserole. I was pleasantly surprised.