Skip to main content

Copy Catting

I don't like many frozen foods, but there were a few from Stouffer's that I liked in the old days, like Grandma's Chicken and Vegetable Rice Bake. It actually did remind me of a rice casserole my grandmother used to make. It now costs almost $15.00 for a large size, and I'm not paying that, especially as the quality of the ingredients Stouffer's uses has gone so far downhill. So I decided to see if I could find a copy-cat recipe and make my own version (there is a copy-cat recipe online for basically anything, I've discovered.)

This recipe came pretty close. It maybe cost four dollars for me to make. I did tweak it by using cream of chicken instead of cream of mushroom, as that's what I preferred, and canned peas and carrots instead of frozen. I also used only about half the chicken in the recipe, as we're trying to cut down on the amount of meat in our meals. It was tasty, although not an exact copy (a bit dry, and it had a slightly different flavor.) I also think there is too much panko in the recipe; about half would work better. Still, the texture was spot-on and it looked almost identical to the frozen entree. Anyway, I'm going to make it again in the future and do a few more tweaks to see if I can get it closer.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Stuff

After finding this Caron one pound skein of lovely peach yarn in my thrifted lot I raided my stash for two cakes of Mandala in Pegasus, which matches it perfectly. For practice and hand therapy I'm going to make another Worth Street Afghan with this free pattern , but this time I'll use the yarn that was recommended for it plus the one pound skein. I'm not quite ready to do the vintage/recycled linen quilt I had planned (still a bit too nervous about the idea), so I'm going to use some color therapy and make a quilt from these thrifted green fat quarters. I considered doing another Yellow Brick road patchwork pattern, but I might go with a split rail fence like this one.

Better than Fried

I cut some chives from the kitchen garden to make garlic-chive baked fries for dinner. This is a great side dish for veggie burgers. Click here for the recipe from Taste of Home.com.

The Mercantile

If you don't mind walking 33K square feet in retail space, The Mercantile may be the vintage/arts store you'd enjoy visiting if you're ever in Orlando. I certainly did. Because it was busy I didn't take any photos in the store, but it's absolutely amazing and chock full of antiques and artisan creations, most of which were pretty reasonably priced. For $21.00 I invested in a picture of sailboats for the guest bathroom I'm redoing, and a fairy mystery jar of cool stuff. The jaw was hand-painted and decorated, and utterly charming. I think I wanted the jar more than the contents. As you can see the contents were both generous and pretty cool, too. I finally have some vintage gloves to use for my art quilter bingo challenge!