The parishioners of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church just ooze hospitality.  Recovering from surgery? We will break down your door to bring you a casserole. Need a ride to the doctor? We practically create a traffic jam getting to your house. We might as well run around with pineapples hung around our necks we’re so hospitable.

We are getting an interim rector to temporarily replace our beloved Father Bob. It’s an Episcopal thing. Priests, usually retired, specialize in shepherding the flock for a period of time while a new rector is chosen. And we have ours now. The Reverend Dr. J. Wesley Smith and his wife, Christina, moved into the rectory yesterday. And we were ready for him.

We revived an old custom called Pounding the Preacher – bringing our new spiritual leader a pound of this and a pound of that to stock his larder before he moved in. And this should give Father J. or Father Wesley or whatever he desires to be called an indication of what he has gotten himself into. As usual, we did it excessively. I hope we didn’t scare him off.

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Seriously. Really. Nothing succeeds like excess. Wait until the reception after his first Sunday preaching. We have glass plate receptions and silver platter receptions. This will be a silver platter situation. The man has no idea.

I made my award-winning-in-my-own-mind Chicken Divan for the Pounding so the Smith’s would have a nice home-cooked meal on their first night in the rectory. In a disposable aluminum pan. That is the first rule of hospitality when it comes to banging down the door with a casserole. Never make the recipient wash a dish and have to return it.  We have many more rules. Iron-clad rules. But you have to know the secret handshake to get them.

 

Chicken Divan
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Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 4
 
Ingredients
  • 1 Rotisserie chicken
  • 2 cans cream of chicken soup
  • ½ cup mayonnaise
  • 3 tablespoons sour cream
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • ½ teaspoon curry powder
  • Shredded Cheddar cheese
  • Milk to thin
  • 1 10-ounce package frozen French-cut green beans, thawed
  • 2 pouches Trader Joe's frozen organic brown rice
  • 1 cup Panko bread crumbs mixed with 2 tablespoons melted butter
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Remove the chicken meat from the carcass and shred it. Reserve.
  3. Mix together the soup, mayonnaise, sour cream, lemon juice and curry powder.
  4. Add the cheese, combine thoroughly and add enough milk to thin the sauce.
  5. Microwave each rice pouch according to the package directions and put in the bottom of a casserole dish. Sprinkle the green beans over the rice. Mix the chicken in with the sauce and top the green beans. Finish by sprinkling the bread crumbs over the top.
  6. Bake for about 30 minutes.
 

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