"Poppy Seed Rice" recipe

David's always been a big fan of his mom's "poppy seed chicken casserole." In fact, she made several big pans of it for our rehearsal dinner supper (almost 9 years ago!). It was a big hit, and made several new "fans" of the recipe.

I like it, too, and made it regularly for us to enjoy -- until our "health/diet transformation." The biggest problems I have with the original recipe are the canned cream soups it uses, and the Ritz cracker topping.

Well, last night I tried a healthier, simpler version of the recipe which I think was a success. It could use a little more seasoning (salt, garlic powder, oregano, basil, etc.) -- but the basic flavors are good and true to the basic idea of the original recipe. Here's what I did:

I cooked a pot of brown rice (about 1 1/2 cups) in water. (I would have used and will use chicken or turkey broth if available. I did allow my rice to soak overnight before cooking.)

To the cooked rice, I added a good bit of cooked (leftover!) chicken meat, one 8 oz package of cream cheese, 1 1/2 Tbsp of butter, some salt and garlic powder, and about a teaspoon or so of poppy seeds. Also, since my rice had already cooled, I added a little water to keep the rice from burning on bottom while I heated it all up again.

I just mixed it all up and left it in the saucepan for us to serve from, but it would look nice spread into and served from a casserole dish, too. (But you might miss the look of the topping more if you spread this into a casserole.) We like the taste of the topping, but that was easy to omit and we still enjoyed the rice mixture. (My brother would object to the missing topping, I'm sure!) Instead of a saucepan or casserole, you could also use a Dutch oven or skillet, of course.

I really liked keeping the ingredients more simple (less processed) and that it was a one-dish meal (since my chicken was already cooked). Another downside to the original recipe is that I would use several dishes to make it -- yuck! Washing dishes is not my favorite pasttime. I don't mind it that much, but I also try to intentionally cut down on the number of dishes I'll have to wash, especially since right now we don't have a dishwasher. (Which most of the time, I don't mind a bit.)

David and I each brought this for our lunch today, along with a baked sweet potato and green salad. It was very good, and something I believe we'll do again!

Well, "Baby Day" is 3 weeks away. I am expecting to be responsible for my own food during my hospital stay; I doubt they will provide me much worth eating. (Isn't that ironic?) I'll try to blog about my experience with the menu options they give me while I'm there! (Of course, there will also be plenty of baby news to share, but I'll do my best! It'd be great if they'll let me keep my little menu sheets.)