Chris’s Birthday–Dinner

We had VERY non-traditional meals for the holidays, and Chris has chosen a menu that has all the flavors of the holidays–which is perfect because we are celebrating Christmas with J today too. He chose chicken casserole with buttered stuffing mix on top; sweet potato casserole; broccoli; and a salad. I will also put out some of the cranberry-raspberry-orange sauce to accompany it.

Jackson is going to be able to join us since he finally has 2 days off in a row from UPS. He drove as far as Chris’ apartment last night, and the two of them will come down today. I made a buffalo chicken dip to go with some other snacks to eat when they get here–I am guessing around midday.

Buffalo Chicken dip:

1 lb. of chopped cooked chicken breast (I love the prepackaged rotisserie chicken breast from Costco)

1 package of cream cheese

1 cup blue cheese dressing

3/4 to 1 1/2 cups buffalo wing sauce (I like Hooter’s and Moore’s for this recipe)

4 oz crumbled blue cheese

Chop the chicken and place in a medium mixing bowl and set aside. Put cream cheese, dressing and wing sauce in a food processor and blend thoroughly. Add the cream cheese mixture and the blue cheese to the chicken and stir until completely combined. Spread the mixture in a greased 8 x 8 inch pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes until bubbly and lightly brown on top. It is best with Frito Lay Scoops–don’t let anyone tell you any differently.

Chicken Casserole–this makes a HUGE batch because I will send leftovers with both boys

3 1/2 lbs of cooked chicken

3 cans cream of chicken soup

16 oz carton of sour cream

4 cups of Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix (in the blue bag)

1 stick of butter melted

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Combine soup and sour cream in a large mixing bowl and set aside. Chop chicken into bite sized pieces and add to soup mix. Thoroughly combine. Spray a 15 x 10 inch Pyrex baking dish with baking spray. Spread the chicken mixture evenly in pan. Combine stuffing mix and melted butter until stuffing is coated with butter. Top the casserole evenly with stuffing mixture. Put in oven and bake for 40 to 45 minutes. Check occasionally to see if stuffing is getting too brown. If so, place aluminum foil loosely over casserole. Casserole should be brown on top and bubbly when finished.

Sweet Potato Casserole

This is a pretty standard recipe. The filling is sweet potatoes (roasted, boiled, or canned), whipping cream, vanilla, butter and spices. I use the Wake and Bake Sweet Spice blend from Alchemy Spice in Chattanooga–you can order online. (Their Post Modern Poultry seasoning is also fantastic.) I put the sweet potato filling together on Monday and put it in the freezer so I wouldn’t have to spend all day in the kitchen.

The topping:

1 cup pecans

1/2 cup flour

1 stick butter

1 cup brown sugar

Add all ingredients to food processor and process until the mixture starts holding together like a streusel.

Top the casserole with the streusel and bake at 375 for 45 to 50 minutes until streusel is brown.

Chris’ favorite salad

1 head romaine lettuce chopped (or lettuce of your choice)

2 large Honeycrisp apples diced into 3/4″ pieces

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1 cup candied pecans, chopped (I use the ones from Trader Joe’s, or make my own cinnamon pecans)

4 oz crumbled blue cheese, like Gorgonzola

Dressing:

1 cup Cranberry-Raspberry-Orange sauce (see earlier post for recipe)

1/2 cup walnut oil

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

2 tsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients in food processor until emulsified. You can store this in the refrigerator for up to a month.