Chicken-stuffed Shells

 

Bethany made these for dinner on Sunday night. They’re one of my favorites.

There are many variations on the ‘net out there.

I’d use Miracle Whip instead of mayo if I was doing it, but there’s not enough to taste the difference.  We also generally add a 2nd can of cream of chicken soup so there’s more (& thicker) gravy.  We have used the light Miracle Whip and the “healthy request” can of chicken soup with no discernible difference.

Obviously, a rotisserie chicken makes this go a little more quickly.  Ha ha.  Also, I like to grill the chicken breasts on the counter-top electric grill rather than boil them.  Seems easier, and I like the dark edges.

This is one of my favorie meals, it lasts for lunches for days or freezes well.  I like ’em with a side of nice fresh green beans.

Also… you could change it up with Cream of Mushroom or Cream of Celery or Cream of whatever soup…  Not sure how you’d adapt to a vegetarian/vegan version if you wanted to… I know Campbell’s “cream of” soups have “natural flavors” that could have once been alive & self-aware… and I’m not sure about stove-top stuffing but I’m sure there’s chicken flavoring in there.

We’ve also done this with leftover Turkey & stuffing after Thanksgiving.

Chili à la AiXeLsyD

Originally from a post at PittsburghBeat.com, here’s a few consolidated chili recipe/methods…

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I’ve never made chili before, and in researching, I came across 50 billion recipes. So, this morning I made my own in the crock pot…

• 2 cans of condensed tomato soup
• 1 can of tomato paste
• 1 packet of chili mix
• about ½ cup of water
• 1 tsp. of beef bullion
• 1 can light red kidney beans
• however much ground meat was leftover from last night
• 1 tsp. cumin
• 1 tsp. black pepper
• a dash of cayenne pepper
• a dash of paprika
• a dash of garlic

…and I slapped it into the crock pot on low for 8 hours.

Hope it tastes good when I get home. I’ve got shredded cheddar cheese for the top of it, & Super-Pretzels to go along with it. They always served pretzels & chili in my elementary school cafeteria so they belong together in my warped mind.

…Most of them use tomato paste, soup, sauce, juice, or diced tomatoes as a base… I even saw one that called for Spicy hot V8… and I think my mom always used soup. Tomato paste is usually bitter, so I figured the tomato soup would counteract it. All of the spices should be rockin’. I like my chili thick.

Oh yeah, about 1/2 the ground meat was cooked w/ some seasoning salt & A1.

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Here’s what basically went into my chili. I’ll probably eventually make a blog about it with a narrative so I can remember what I did this time for next time… to see what I wanna change or what I wanna do again.

I ended up only using the one can of diced tomatoes (the one with jalapeños) and still kind’ve overflowed the pot by a small amount. So, next time I may cut out one can of tomato soup or a can of beans. Also, I want to try garbanzo beans in my next batch… and I’ve heard chocolate powder goes good in chili some times… so I wanna try that one day too.

I also tossed in 2 slices of Velveeta ripped apart, a dash of spicy brown mustard, and a drop or 2 of A1 Cracked Peppercorn Steak Sauce.

I think the meat that I used was too fatty or I didn’t drain enough fat (…even though I got a about ⅔ of a regular sized plastic cup full of fat out of it). I had to skim some excess grease off of the top when I popped it open this morning.

I’ll let you know the general consensus after it’s been consumed.