Thursday, March 27, 2008

My Retro Confession


(Man, am I pleased with this casserole)


Ok, let me just confess this right now: my dinner tonight contains almost a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup. And I liked it.

Usually I have an unreasonable fear of Campbell's Cream of ____ products. I know it's bad for you and the flavor, aside from the cream of mushroom one, just scares me. I also have an unreasonable fear of other foods like hot dogs, donuts, soda (especially the creamed variety), and others. But none of those items would be making an appearance at my dinner table any time soon.

Once upon a time when I was in junior high, casseroles with the Campbell's Cream of _____ were all the rage. I recently discovered a blog called The Pioneer Woman Cooks, a funny food blog with recipes that almost always call for butter and almost always promise to be "man-pleasing." One of these man-pleasing recipes called Chicken Spaghetti has caught my attention, and with frozen cooked chicken and a block of cheddar cheese in my fridge, it was all the excuse I need to try it out.

My corner market didn't have any green bell peppers today so I winged it without. I am not going to write up this recipe in hopes that you may also try it because Pioneer Woman's blog does a good enough job. I basically boiled thin vermicelli, browned some chopped up onions (i like them very well cooked. This is essential in the recipe), mixed it altogether with 1/2 to 3/4 can of Campbell's mushroom soup, cooked chicken, a lot of ground black pepper, some red pepper flakes, shredded cheese (I think sharp cheddar works better but I only had mild Irish cheddar today), and threw it into the oven to brown.

I did get a jar of pimentos to add in the casserole as suggested by the recipe, but it didn't make it because I just couldn't get the damn jar to open! I LOVE living by myself 99 percent of the time, the 1 percent of the time when I hate it is when I can't open a jar or when I have to carry groceries upstairs. I wrapped about four rubber bands around this jar of pimentos and it just would not budge! I think the casserole is fine without it. But since I have no idea what pimentos taste like on their own (out of an olive), I really can't say for sure.


(The jar of hateful pimentos. See the rubber bands?)

2 comments:

thx1135 said...

rubber bands? is this what they teach you in finishing school? ha! you need to tap it with the butt end of a heavy knife in the direction that you want the cap to move (to the left for opening). from, a man.

Nandita said...

Couldn't you just stick a thin, flat edge into the cap and loosen the vacuum that way? That's how you can easily open a sealed jar. Don't bother with rubber bands. They might give you "rubber burn"!