Christi Found the Kitchen: Chicken Broccoli Divan

February 29, 2012

Okay, here's one of those recipes that shows my obvious lack of kitchen experience. I've never eaten this dish, much less made it before. I learned lots from my mistakes!

Mistake number 1: When I pull up the recipe last night on Eat at Home Cooks , I had my first...ohhhh nooo moment. The chicken should already be cooked when it all gets mixed up! This was supposed to be a crockpot dish that cooks while I am at work. Okay...think (or go pin other yummy stuff instead - I chose the latter). I have a bag of frozen chicken breasts...what do I do? Improvise. It'll be a sorta crockpot meal. I decided to go ahead and put the chicken in the crockpot to cook overnight (after many minutes of not knowing how on earth I could save this), so it'll be ready to go into the (now oven baked) casserole when I get home. Whew. Crisis averted. I will also add, probably a much better idea than running out to get canned chicken, which was my first thought.. That would have just been embarrassing.

So step one that you will omit because you are a smart cookie and read the recipe like a good little kitchen wizard before its time to throw it together.

Place bag of (now semi) frozen chicken breasts in crockpot on LOW to cook while you sleep. When you wake up, cube and portion out 3 cups worth for this recipe. Freeze the rest for future "oh no" moments.

Mistake number 2: I start gathering my ingredients for the very important pic of stuff you need only to discover one of "those people" at the grocery store must changed their mind and put a can of Cream of Celery back in the wrong spot. So, I have one Cream of Celery and one Cream of Chicken. I don't even like celery, but I used it! And yes, I will read the cans before I toss them in the buggy from now on.

Here's what I used.

Mistake number 3...oh, how they keep coming. The broccoli should be thawed. I had to let it sit and drain in a colander in the sink for a while before I could make this. I wasn't sure what the microwave would do to it since it still has to go in the oven.

So finally...here's the recipe..and I did base it on the recipe from Eat at Home Cooks, but I changed so much of it through mistakes or my own experimenting that it is no longer exact.

1 bag frozen broccoli florets (thawed and drained)
3 cups chicken, cooked and cubed
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of celery soup
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp. lemon juice
about 1/2 cup of grated cheddar cheese
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
1 Tbsp. melted butter

Put the chicken in the bottom of a casserole dish.. All my dishes were busy with leftovers (and a couple seem to have grown legs and walked off), so I used a disposable 9x13 tin pan.