As you know from my 30 before 30 list I have to try at least one recipe a week. This is because we need to eat at home. When I say “I cannot cook” I’m very serious. It’s no joke. So, for those of you that cook, or have at least given it “the college try,” you may find my details below ridonkulous. You will likely either roll your eyes or pray for me if you choose to read my directions.
Today’s recipe is Poppy Seed Chicken. You can follow the link for the original recipe, comments/changes and nutritional facts.
Ingredients
- 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
- 1/2 cup butter, melted
- 1 sleeve buttery round crackers (such as Ritz®), crushed
- 1 teaspoon poppy seeds, or more if desired
- 1 (8 ounce) container sour cream
- 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup (I used two cans.)
- 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
I decided, after reading the comments, to add a cup of rice. Here are all the “dry” ingrediants as I forgot to pull out the sour cream and cheddar cheese for the photo.
The recipe’s directions:
- Place the chicken breasts into a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to medium, cover, and simmer until the chicken breasts are no longer pink in the center, about 20 minutes. Drain the water, then shred the chicken.
- Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Combine the butter, crackers, and poppy seeds in a bowl; set aside.
- Blend the sour cream and cream of chicken soup in a bowl; pour half of the soup mixture into a 9×9-inch baking dish. Add the shredded chicken, then pour the remaining half of the soup mixture on top. Sprinkle with Cheddar cheese, then top with the cracker mixture.
- Bake in the preheated oven until cheese has melted and the sauce is bubbly, 25 to 30 minutes.
My directions:
1. First, find out what is a breast half. I starred at our frozen Perdue bag title “Chicken Breasts” and finally googled it. Here is the photo that lead me to believe that the bag contained breat halves, not full breasts.
here
2. I stuck my four halves in a large pot already filled with water that almost came to the bolts of my handles. Then, I put the stove on high and turned it down when it started to boil. I turned mine down too far, so if you have a Magic Chef oven or an old oven like myself I went from HIGH to 7 to fix that problem. I set a timer for 20 minutes. The chicken looks gross during this time. 
On the original recipe, one commenter said that you could put the frozen, boneless skinless chicken breasts in the crockpot with a cup of water on low all day instead of boiling it.
3. Resist the urge to eat the Ritz. I decided to use this boiling time to crush the Ritz and belt the butter. I tried to crush the Ritz inside the sleeve which didn’t work out.
So, I crushed them in the sleeve and dump them in a bowl. Then, I added the melted butter, 1 cup of minute white rice and a tablespoon of poppy seeds. The rice made me really nervous but I decided I could add more soup if needed as I had two cans. I ended up using both cans. (By the way, 1/2 cup a butter is a whole stick.)
4. I didn’t preheat the oven until the chicken was done boiling, as I work slow. This is when I realized I didn’t have a 9×9 pan. So, I used a bigger one. This caused me to use two cans of condensed cream of chicken and one 8oz container of sour cream. I was scared about this.
5. I dumped the chicken into a colendar then put it in the sprayed pan. Shredding the chicken is not easy.
6. I dumped about 3/4 of the sour cream and condensed soup mixture and stired. I smoothed out the chicken to make sure it was even distributed then poured the remaining 1/4 of the mixture.
7. Then, I wondered if I should have added the rice to the sour cream not the crackers. So, I decided to bypass the layering suggested and added the cheese to the Ritz mix. (By the way, two cups is the smaller cheese bag.) I poured that on top and realized my rice my never get soft, So, I mixed it in with the chicken. Here is the difference between mixing it in (on the left) and simply pouring it on the top (on the right).
7. I stuck it in the oven and decided to wash the dishes in case it was gross and we needed to go out for something. I started to tell myself I wanted Mexican food anyways. However, this stuff was the jam!
I pulled it out of the oven and yelled, “It looks good!” I decided to taste it and it was good. So, naturally, I ran across the house yelling at The Mister, “It’s good! It’s good! Hurry up and come into the kitchen! I did a good job!”
This will happen again. You need to make this. It makes me hungry to just look at it.
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