Martha Stewart, I'm Not!

I love a good casserole.  In fact, if I can "dump, stir, and shove," I consider it a culinary triumph.  That's why I was delighted when I found this "chicken smash" recipe.  Throw some shredded chicken and shredded cheese in flour tortillas, roll them up, and then smother the whole shebang with a mix of cream of chicken soup, green chilis, chopped onions, and sour cream.

For its crowning glory?  Lots of shredded cheese, of course!  How can you go wrong with cheese?  Of course the recipe did say to boil up some boneless chicken breasts to use for the chicken but hey, why go to all that bother when there is perfectly good rotisserie chicken available in the supermarket?  I'm not about to touch raw meat it I don't have to.

I have a favorite character in a series of books by J. Michael Orenduff.  He writes the Pot Thief mysteries and if you haven't read his books, you should definitely give them a try, especially if you enjoy witty mysteries that make you chuckle.  The "pot thief" in his books is Hubie Schuze and Hubie is a bit of a food connoisseur.  He has a neighbor named Gladys Claiborne who delights in bringing him casseroles that are the stuff of nightmares for dear old Hubie.  Yet he finds himself occasionally admitting that they don't taste half-bad.  They always sound pretty darn good to me.  In fact, I recognize an awful lot of them.....have probably made quite a few of them myself.

If I can throw something together in 5 ingredients or less, hallelujah!  If one of those ingredients is a can of cream of something soup, even better.  If another ingredient is cheese, I'm in nirvana.

In contrast, I also made a Lemon Merinque Cake today for a social gathering that I'm attending tomorrow.  It was a fussy recipe involving lots of steps.

I think it will taste pretty good.  It has a nice lemon ganache in the middle of the torte and a fluffy cream cheese, lemon juiced and zested and whipped cream topping on top of that.  But I slaved all afternoon over it.  And when I went to put the cover over the holder, it smushed the topping down along the sides.  Drat!

I just hope the ladies at the luncheon tomorrow don't blanch when I unveil it and let them know that it is a new recipe.  The last "new recipe" I tried on them was the one for the maple syrup sausages that turned out hard as rocks when the maple syrup solidified because I let it boil over the sausages too long and it turned into rock candy.


My chicken enchildada smash casserole is out of the oven now and cooling the requisite fifteen minutes before serving.  It certainly smells good.  As I head off to enjoy it, I'll leave you with this pic of little Mika.  She's turning into quite the water baby down in Houston, as the family awaits the arrival of her little brother.