Its been a lazy Saturday for me, hopefully y’all have been a little more active.
Last week on Pinterest I saw a meal I was interested in making. It was meant to be my “Fatten Me Up Friday” meal, but it ended up being a Saturday thing. The reason I am calling it a fatten me up Friday type of meal is because it was a far cry from anything healthy. It’s a baked potato casserole. It looked like this when out of the oven:
The recipe that I followed can be seen below, while the original recipe is here.
1 bag pre-washed and cubed potatoes, about 1lb or 500g
½ lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced
¾ cups shredded cheddar cheese
¾ cups shredded gruyère cheese
2 green onions, sliced (green parts only)
Salt and pepper to taste
½ cup heavy cream
1 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
Directions:
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Heat oven to 350ºF or 175ºC. Lightly grease a 9″ x 9″ baking pan or casserole dish. (I used a medium casserole dish, no idea what the actual measurements are)
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Spread half of the diced potatoes in bottom of pan. Place the diced chicken breasts evenly on top. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Add a third of each cup of the cheese, and half the green onions.
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Spread the remaining diced potatoes on top, add the rest of the chicken, another 1/3 cup cheese, remaining green onions and some more salt and pepper to taste.
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Pour heavy cream over top of casserole and then dot with the butter.
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Cover with aluminum foil and bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour. Uncover and bake another 30 minutes.
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In the last few minutes of baking, sprinkle with the remaining third a cup cheddar cheese and bake until melted. Serve.
It came out of the oven not looking all too bad. I however could not eat it.
Only in the past year have I learnt to be able to both cook and eat chicken. I have the most massive fear of raw poultry. It just scares me to bits thinking that I could become ill from eating cookie dough or brownie batter with a raw egg in it or when my chicken isn’t thoroughly cooked in my meal. So I would happily overcook my chicken any day. Although, when I would eat red meat several years ago I also had to make sure it was well done.
So, when I removed my casserole from the oven after an hour and a half/forty-five minutes, I checked my meal and it looked to me like my chicken wasn’t cooked enough. Mom reassured me that it was. She cut it and showed me that it was cooked all the way in and it cut like it was, it was just that the one side of the pieces looked pink. Mom then ended having the loaded baked potato casserole on her own with some extras of bacon.
I then decided to just make my own meal in 3 seconds basically. I turned the kettle on to boil some water as I pulled out some ramen noodles from the cupboard and made my own dinner.
This is the recipe I followed for the above photo:
1 brick ramen noodles
½ cube vegetable bouillon
1 Tablespoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon less sodium soy sauce
1 egg, scrambled
1 Tablespoon green onion, chopped
1 teaspoon sesame seeds, toasted
Directions:
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Boil water in a kettle, once whistling pour water into a glass bowl and put brick of ramen into bowl with ½ vegetable bouillon cube
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While ramen is being cooked till preferred consistency, heat tablespoon of sesame oil in small frying pan. Add teaspoon of soy sauce to sesame oil. Remove ramen from water and add to oil in pan and coat ramen with oil mixture.
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Once cooked remove ramen from frying pan and place on plate or in bowl. Wipe down frying pan quickly with paper towel. Next oil pan again (I just used the sesame oil again) and add egg. Scramble with spatula until cooked the way you like it. Add scrambled eggs to your noodle dish.
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Next using same pan on medium low heat, lightly sauté green onions. Once cooked top eggs with green onions.
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Finally add sesame seeds to same frying pan and cook until browned, then add to top all that is in the bowl.
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Grab some chopsticks (or a fork) and indulge in this quick masterpiece.
My ramen dish was definitely not made from an actual recipe. This was just me thinking of my Suriname friends by adding an egg to my meal as well as keeping life good with some protein. I must say, I definitely trusted my quick dish better than the crockpot meal. Luckily mom liked the first dish while I enjoyed my second.
So I have to say the meal turnout for me wasn’t all that bad. What do you say?
Oh, and here’s Austin. He is so not thrilled with having those candy cane themed antlers on his head, but doesn’t he just look the cutest? I’ve been taking photos of him like this all day long. If you are to go on my instagram (the photos in the side panel to the right of here) you will see more pictures of this cutiepie.
Anyway, hope you try the first recipe. Maybe if you follow the original recipe it will work out for you. If you don’t go for it then you can always try the second simple and quick recipe I put together.
Eet smakelijk!
Bounce Around in the Kitchen 