Dinner is Served

We open up our cabin in the cool pine country of Arizona in three stages. It’s a process to prepare for closing one house and opening the other for six months each year.

As temps soar here in the Valley of the Sun, the time has come. It’s always a big deal to pack up the first load, go north, unload, and then return to Phoenix. That makes dinner a problem.

Dinner is rarely a problem at our house. Partly because, bless his heart, DH WILL eat anything! Truly. Never a problem. No the problem on the moving days is we get back late and if I didn’t plan ahead, what do we eat?

It happened this week. Home after 6:30. We normally eat at 7 after playing a rousing game of cubes.  Okay, so I did a quick refrigerator inventory. What follows is the recipe. Seriously, don’t hold me to measurements here. We’re talking leftovers. I would love to be on that cooking show, Chopped. Give me a basket of mystery ingredients. Pshaw! That’s what I do most days! And these people win $10,000???

DH loves casseroles, fortunately, so when he looked at the serving dish, he asked, “What’s this?” Instead of my usual snarky, “Dinner,”I replied, “Your favorite. Casserole.”

He poked around in the bowl, and announced. “Yes, my favorite Peoria Casserole.” Thus, the following:

Peoria Casserole

Leftover angel hair pasta, maybe 1 ½ cups

1 pkg chicken Swanson “Flavor Boost”™

2 big handfuls of fresh spinach

1 handful of fresh mushrooms

about 1 c leftover roast chicken and the drippings from cooking

Pam a casserole dish. Toss pasta with Flavor Booster. Mix in remaining ingredients. Cover. Microwave for 3 ½ minutes. Dinner is served.

Coincidentally, my new culinary mystery series is called “Dinner is Served”. The first book, Mission Impastable, will be out this summer from Oak Tree Press.