Clark’s Cheesy Chicken Crack Casserole

So, I made this today on quarantine day number - umm - whatever.  My partner had a bad day teleworking, and both of us needed some culinary comfort.  I had roasted a chicken on Sunday, and I had noodles leftover from something I had cooked last week, so I thought - CHICKEN CRACK CASSEROLE!! I literally made this up as a went along.  I used a recipe on the French's site as a - very rough - guide.  This is fairly typical of the casseroles I grew up with - except this one has a ton of flavor!  You can add whatever vegetables you want to this, just make sure that they are all cooked.  That's one mistake our Mothers made with these recipes, raw vegetables always cook at different rates, so if you throw a bunch of uncooked vegetables into the mix, some will be cooked, but you will still have some uncooked raw onion, or whatever in the casserole - which aren't always good thing, are they, Dawn?

PREHEAT oven to 350 degrees

In a large bowl ADD and WHISK together:

1 can Cream of Celery Soup

1 can Cheddar Cheese Soup

2 ½ cups milk

ADD to the bowl

3 cups chicken in chunks (the meat from one store-bought rotisserie chicken)

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

3 – 4 cups of cups of cooked wide egg noodles (it’s about half of a bag of uncooked egg noodles)

In a 12” pan, HEAT on medium heat, until melted and bubbly:

2 TBLS Butter

SAUTE:

1 Medium onion, diced

1 cup quartered mushrooms

Cook until the onions are translucent about 3 minutes, then ADD:

½ tsp garlic powder

1 tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

1 tsp dried parsley

¼ cup sherry (totally optional)

Continue to cook for a 3 to 4 minutes until the mushrooms have rendered their moisture and the alcohol from the sherry has burned off, then ADD:

4 oz cream cheese

Stir until all ingredients are mixed together and the cream cheese is completely melted, remove from heat.

ADD the mushrooms and onions to the large bowl of chicken and stuff and mix everything together very well

POUR into a large casserole dish – a 9 x 13 pyrex should do.

TOP with:

1 large container of French’s Fried Onions!

Bake for about 40 minutes! It should be golden brown on top and bubbling!