Chicken basil broccoli casserole

 After camping all weekend we didn't have a lot of groceries in the fridge and I planned on going tomorrow instead of rushing out to the root cellar this afternoon. So I took stock of what I had in the freezer first.  Chicken or Beef?  I decided on some stir fry chicken from the freezer and brought it out to defrost for a few hours.  Then I had to decide what I was going to do with the Chicken. I considered making chicken fried rice but then I realized that I had two bags of broccoli cut up that needed to be used up so this Chicken Basil Broccoli casserole was born.  

For more flavour I decided to cook my rice in homemade chicken stock out of the freezer.  So I grabbed out two jars and defrosted them in a sink full of warm water.  Then I added into my rice cooker:

1 1/2 cups uncooked brown rice

1 tsp basil

1 tbsp butter or dairy free butter

2 cups chicken stock
1 cup water

Cook in rice cooker with chicken stock or half chicken stock half water, butter and basil. 

Then I moved onto making the Dairy free chicken soup base for the dish.

1/2 onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, sliced

1tsp olive oil

1/2 pound chicken, cubed

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/4 cup flour

1 1/2 cups chicken stock

1/2 cup almond milk

Pepper to taste

2 cups broccoli florets 

While rice is cooking, brown garlic and onion in large pan, once browned add in chicken and cook through. Sprinkle sea salt and flour into pan, mix into chicken mixture. Pour chicken stock and almond milk down over the floured chicken and stir until bubbly and thick. Add in more flour and chicken stock to reach desired consistency. Season as you like at this stage. 

Next add in the broccoli and just slightly cook. Then add in your rice mixing until covered with sauce.

Put mixture into casserole dish. Top with dollops of Sour cream, Greek yogurt or dairy free sour cream. Parmesan or vegan Parmesan and 1/4 cup white cheddar or lactose free cheese.

Bake for 15 minutes then broil until the top is brown.

One great thing about this dish is you could make it the night before and pull it out of the fridge to bake for dinner the next night!  When I was working I quite often made our dinners the night before and it worked so well!  Give this one a try one night and let me know how it went!

I know Gord isn't a huge fan of anything with the word casserole in the title which is why I hardly make dishes like these even tho I enjoy them.  But low and behold he actually took a second helping! My man has sure come a long way, when I met him he didn't even like anything RICE!

Unfortunately Asher was dog tired from a big camping weekend and had only a few bites, he chose going to bed over finishing his dinner and is now in bed and has been there since 5:30pm.  I hope it's not just a nap.....

We had a wonderful weekend camping but we are happy to be back home!

Have a great week everyone!