On a roll with casserole

I narrowly escaped another cooking failure this week. I was planning on cooking an Indian dish but couldn't find an ingredient that was required for several recipes I found for chicken tikka masala. This dish will unfortunately have to wait until I have time to locate an Indian market in the area. As I still had plans to cook dinner for my friend Nat, I had to band-aid the situation quickly and find a new recipe. I consulted my trusty iPod, realized I had no access to the internet and the associated plethora of recipes, so I immediately ran for the magazine aisle. After sifting through the majority of the available cooking magazines I settled on a recipe for crunchy chicken casserole. The ingredients were pretty basic, and made it easy to prepare separate chicken and rice meals for lunch leftovers. Seriously though, how can anyone resist cooking a casserole that requires a layer of ridged potato chips?!

Casserole is pretty darn straight forward, so it obviously tasted awesome! We substituted feta cheese for cheddar cheese, added some carrots and green beans, and ixnayed the pimientos and mayonnaise. It was refreshing to check "cook casserole" off of my "food to cook" checklist, but I'm eager to cook some more challenging recipes in the near future! I think this night opened up Nat's eyes to a world of cooking beyond her current comfort level, so I'm glad that the experience was educational for her. It was also a cheap week of eating - aside from the typical few meals eaten out, the groceries cost less than $30 and made about 6 meals total.

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Happy cooking, little chefs!