Table for One: Chicken Poppyseed

I’ve had a hard time trying to write anything lately. Dang emotions. It’s a real bummer how the virus that shall not be named has affected some things I love and that I was really gung-ho on strengthening this year. And then the ground shook, hahahaha. Nerves. Fried. We’re all aware of what this week has been like and no one wants to hear about it ANYMORE. (Actually, I still do because it is what’s going on and it’s important to be informed).

But anyway, since I’m at home with quite a bit of extra time, I figured I might as well try something new!

Several years ago, two very wonderful co-workers gave me a book as a joke. Table for One: Perfectly portioned meals for the single cook by Camille Funk.

When I got it, I skimmed and opened to a recipe that called for one piece of bacon. ONE. Just one, that you fry up nicely by itself. How lovely!

[I don’t think this book was created as a joke, but I do think it would be a nice white elephant gift.]

Anyway, it’s been on my shelf for YEARS and I’ve never tried anything from it because 1) I don’t really like cooking that much unless I’m cooking for others, 2) if I do go to the trouble of cooking for myself, I definitely want leftovers for a week, 3) I always have the staples but not often the rando stuff that cookbooks ask for (let’s be honest, I don’t even know the last time I bought bacon to even have one slice around), and 4) I’m far more inclined to look in my pantry and then search online for recipes that use what I already have.

But this weekend I tried it.

Due to the author’s rights to the recipe, I won’t post it, but you’ll get the gist.

First, I needed a cup of chicken. Have you ever measured chicken by the cup? Because I have not. I measure by how many chicken breasts or cans. I guessed one chicken breast might be about one cup. I was right. We could have saved time there.

You also need sour cream but if you don’t want to go to the store, you might as well use those little take-home sizes of sour cream that were left over from the Stake Relief Society lunch (pre-isolation days) and you brought them home because you are basically like a depression-era person and you can’t stand seeing anything be wasted and they came to use, so obviously it was a good idea.

For butter, substitute margarine (again, avoiding store tactic). For poppyseeds, go borrow from your sister.

Now here’s a thing. It called for 2 Tbsp of cream of chicken soup. Cool, cool. What am I supposed to do with the rest of it????

And then it tells you to mix some of it and put it in a ramekin. Ok, reminder, this book is for singles. What kind of singles have ramekins? That’s totally something that you order on a wedding registry, so…yeah…no. But I DO have a snowflake mini bread pan, so we’re OK.

You then “sprinkle” a bread mixture on the top but I spread it around because there’s no way to sprinkle melted margarine and Panko.

And then off we go to the oven for 25-30 minutes. (Seriously? All that effort and time for this?)

It looks so lonely. Makes sense. It’s for singles.

Voila!

Basically the same as the book. (It’s probably just the angle and the lighting that make it look different).

How was the taste? About what you’d expect of a chicken sour cream casserole. It was actually a little bland. I usually don’t mind bland, but today I added a shake of salt and it was much better.

For the record, this should definitely be paired with something else like rice because I’m still hungry. Perfectly portioned for the single cook, my foot!

Until next time, folks.