In college, I had this boyfriend that we referred to as “Dreamy Brad”. I thought he was smart and funny and talented. He had all of the ingredients of great boyfriend. He’d show up with flowers. Once, he claimed to have written me a song. He was from Minnesota and was more than just Minnesota nice. I met his mother and his father. And spent time with his home friends. He adored all of my friends and they adored him. He sang “Ashland Girl” instead of “Uptown Girl” before we were even dating. The thrill of hearing him sing “don’t you know, I’m in love,” left me swooning. I mean, it was all really good stuff. 
But then things started to come unraveled. It started out with minor things, like the story of how Helen pursued him endlessly before she went back to England, but he really liked me better. Then a friend asking how I liked our wine tasting adventure that I wasn’t on. Some weird blame-y things that are unimportant now. The random visit to an “ex-girlfriend” while I waited in the car. And then there was the story he told my friends about how I was cheating on him with a guy in Germany before I ever actually went to Germany. He ended up becoming a lawyer. I ended up having to clean up a mess with my friends that I don’t think we ever completely recovered from.
Relationships should be simple and easy. They should be straightforward, but interesting enough that not every day is exactly the same. People, interests, and passions should blend together to create something greater than the sum of the parts, like a decent casserole…er…um..hot dish. There should be shared experiences that help bring everything together. The thing is, one wrong step can ruin the whole thing.
When we went to visit Dreamy Brad’s dad and stepmom in Southwestern Minnesota, two things happened that I would’ve liked to have left in the past. First, I saw Dreamy Brad’s dad in his saggy, baggy, holey tighty whities. Secondly, his stepmom made hot dish. 
This was a classic Minnesota hot dish, known as goulash in some parts. Macaroni combines with ground beef and tomato sauce and is baked with cheese or something on top. You don’t grow up in the Midwest without eating something like this. We used to have something similar in the hot lunch line. The problem comes in when the stuff in the hot lunch line is preferable to what is being served for dinner. This poor hot dish was overcooked noodles, boiled ground beef, and a fresh can of tomato sauce. It lacked seasoning, nuance, flavor, and texture. They all loved it. I ate enough to be polite. Later when Dreamy Brad and I went for a tour of the town, he stopped and got me something else to eat.
As is the case with ex-boyfriends, some things are better left in the past. Since that weekend, I have had many, many more versions of this classic casserole. I shared a similar meal with a seminary student, his wife, and 5 children. Everything came from a box or a jar, but it tasted better and fresher than the Minnesota hot dish. 
When I really got interested in cooking, I knew the days of overdone, bland casseroles were in the past. When I married my husband, I knew for sure that I finally had the right mixture of ingredients for a successful relationship casserole. I never thought that starting a food blog would put me back into the place of flavorless hot dishes.
When I made the first of the three recipes using the Hamburger Dinner Mix, I mentioned that the mix lacked flavor and got lost in the creamy sauce. ***SPOILER ALERT*** It doesn’t get any better in tomato juice. And macaroni generally doesn’t need to cook for up to 15 minutes. 
Having simple dinner mix on hand is brilliant. Combine a few extra ingredients and dinner is on the table. But my dried tears from bad boyfriends alone are not enough to season this skillet meal and truthfully, he wasn’t worth any tears I shed. This is a recipe that needs a little Italian love affair. Add some garlic, basil, oregano, and rosemary. If that’s not your thing, a little flirtation with some South of the border spice may be up your alley. My point is, don’t settle for a lame, boring hot dish. By all means, make this recipe, but when you do, play the field a bit and don’t get your heart broken by something that isn’t really up to your standards.
The Recipes:
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For more quick and easy recipes check out: Quick Cinnamon Rolls, Supper in a Bread Loaf, and Chuck Wagon Casserole.
These days, I call to report in that I may be home around 5 or 5:30, depending on traffic. There are nights where it is later. I need to menu plan and have all my grocery shopping done by Sunday night or my entire week is shot. We’ve relied on more quick meals than I’ve wanted to and at times even casseroles take too long to get on the table before it’s nearly bedtime.
I have a book about making freezer meals. It’s a great book. I don’t have time to prep the meals in it, although I do have the freezer space. (When I say I don’t have the time, I mean that I don’t prioritize the time. I have as much time as anyone else.) How do other people do this? I have so many things I want to do and no time to do them. In short, I am frazzled.
By contrast, the simpler named, simpler prepared Macaroni and Cheese was an overall more satisfying dish. While also custard based, it did not require a water bath to cook. There were few ingredients, but the addition of bread crumbs created a more interesting dish. 
By the time this post publishes, I will be on a work trip to Canada. My husband and kids will be home by themselves. Because I’m me, I want to have some things prepared for them to eat before I leave. It’s just easier for everyone if they don’t have to think about it. Plus it makes it less likely that they will default to pizza every night that they aren’t eating boxed macaroni and cheese. My husband is a getting to be a much better cook because he’s had to take over a lot of the initial meal prep with our work schedules, but when the cat’s away, the mice will play. (Which is a really gross cliche to put on a food blog.)
And speaking of making sure my family is taken care of, I decided to take my blog writing on the road today and worked from a coffee shop this morning. The boys are with their dad and we brought the girl with us because she’s been wanting to get back there and play in their super cool kid area. The coffee shop is known as the town’s living room. We chose a table near the kids’ area, got her a muffin and a chocolate milk that she won’t eat or drink until much later because she already had 3 breakfasts and really just wanted to play. There were a couple of women sitting at table near us. One of them was slightly younger than the other, but if someone had said that they both had grandchildren, I wouldn’t be surprised. Except, I kind of feel like neither of them had ever had kids since they started loudly talking about how terrible we are for bringing our child to a coffee shop and not spending time with her. One of them looked like an old church lady. She would lean forward and whisper something to her companion who would comment outloud about how neglectful we are. It makes me crazy. I feel the need to justify myself and my choices. But it doesn’t matter. They wouldn’t get it. And now they are talking about child psychology. I just can’t even.
This hot chicken salad is nostalgic in flavor and presentation. The potato chips and swiss cheese on top screams “your grandma made this.” She probably did, depending on the age of your grandma. This is the sort of food that would’ve been served in elementary school cafeterias while I was growing up. It probably made its way onto the buffet table at church potlucks in towns all over America. Diners would put this on their menu as as a daily special. It’s like the chicken equivalent of a tuna melt. 
This is the innocent food of a time we think of as simpler than the times we have now. In some ways, maybe it was. When life gets complicated and you want to go back to grandma’s house and just forget that you have to deal with the real world, go grab a rotisserie chicken and make some hot chicken salad. It isn’t going to help you get that promotion at work. It won’t do your housekeeping. It won’t pay a single one of your bills. But it might remind you of a time when you didn’t need to worry about any of those things, either. 
As long as we are going there, let’s get a good picture of this recipe. Imagine you are a cowboy. You have been driving cows down the range. You are hot, you are tired and dusty. The sun is now setting, the cows are lowing as they eat sweet meadow grass. You may hear the trickle of a stream. If you weren’t bow-legged, your chaps would swish softly as you walked. Instead, you hear a small jangle of your spurs and the wail of a harmonica as you walk to the chuck wagon. Your tin plate is in your hand and old Cooky glops something onto it. More than likely it’s a lot like this dish. (Ok, probably not, I think I heard stories about the amount of beans that were eaten, but just go with it for the sake of the story.)
The best thing about casseroles is that they are infinitely adaptable. We might’ve added some chipotle powder to ours. We might’ve added some ancho pepper to it. There is a possibility that we put some cheese in it. Maybe we added some french fried onions on top and served it with optional sour cream…For all of the additions that we made, the best choice was the addition of something more than plain yellow mustard.
If you like this recipe, check out 