Did you hear the one about the wife and the casserole?

We’ve been snowed in for 2 days. Today (day 3), I got out for a while – wind chill was well below 0, wind was whipping snow drifts around at 30 miles an hour and I passed a highway closed off due to a multi-car accident. Nevertheless, I got to the gym and got to Biggby’s Coffee to get Hubby a frozen coffee. The drifting was so bad the Biggby’s door wouldn’t close properly because every time it opened more snow drifted in.

Other Mitteneers have been out in this weather over the past few days, and East Lansing is in much better shape than Lansing, but after watching multiple people in big cars and SUVs having to dig themselves out in the middle of the neighborhood street we live on I decided not to risk it myself. My back + shovel = no. In case you were wondering about graft in Lansing, we live next door to the president of the City Council and it was over 56 hours from the snowfall to when our street got plowed, so I’m feeling pretty confident that there isn’t a lot of graft.

While we were snowed, in I decided to clean out my cupboards and fridge. Tonight we are having Snowed In Casserole.

Ingredients:

• 7 ounces baked chicken. Chicken purchased at L&L the last time there was a meat sale, defrosted and baked.
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pasta. House staple.
• 1 can artichoke hearts. Bought this during some expansive-feeling grocery shopping trip without any particular plan for it. It has not ended up on a homemade pizza since that trip so it made the Snowed In Casserole.
• 1 can Healthy Request Cream of Celery soup. I kid you not. This was actually in my cupboard. What was I thinking?!
• 1/2 cup sour cream. Seemed prudent.
• 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese. If I weren’t on Weight Watchers I would have slathered this entire mess in cheese.
• 1/2 cup milk
• ABORTED – 1 jar of pearl onions. I have no recollection of buying this and it had no expiration date. I tried one and didn’t care for it. I don’t think there was anything wrong with them, my tolerance for dumping old crap into a casserole dish was just at an end. I threw them away
• Lots of ground pepper.
• After sampling, I decided it “needed something.” I went to my spice rack and, thinking “artichokes,” I smelled spices until I came up with a spice mix that I thought would compliment artichokes then added it until I thought it might do more harm than good.

Put in a casserole dish and bake at 350 until bubbly.

I duly warned Hubby that we were having Snowed In Casserole. Being a waste-not, want-not sort of guy he was completely fine with this. I made him garlic cheese bread on the side so he could cover up the potential unappetizing-ness of the casserole with something spicy cheesy. I did my best not to make more than 2 servings – I had no illusions of yummy left-overs.

Unfortunately, I have a lunch-sized portion sitting in the fridge now for myself for tomorrow. The casserole was a standard casserole-like consistency (nailed that one). It was not activley offensive (score!). It tasted rather more like Cream of Celery soup than I would have hoped for. It was improved by even more black pepper at the table. Yes, I too have become a full wife, able to make middling casseroles in a single bound.