Today we’re bringing you an essay from our Community Voices – authentic stories relating to families and food. We promise – you’re going to want to have this recipe, from Pen Parentis founder M. M. De Voe, in your back pocket for those days when you just can’t anymore.
Small Bites:
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Pen Parentis, a national nonprofit that helps writers stay on creative track after having kids, is proud to sponsor Community Voices X Pen Parentis. Their Cycle of Support includes membership, mentorship and accountability meetups for writers of any genre. Also explore the parent-writer experiences of famous authors on their YouTube Channel @PenParentis – More info at writerparentannex.com
You don’t have to be a member of Pen Parentis to share your story – send us a DM or email hello @ onepotato.com if you’re interested in sharing 🥔
Want to share a Tiny Food Story under 100 words? If submitting a full-length Community Voices Special feels intimidating, we’re collecting Tiny Food Stories from the One Potato Community on a rolling basis. These are reader-submitted stories about the love of food and family, 100 words or less. Click the button below to submit.
Guilty Secret Poppy Seed Chicken
(for regular people who just can’t anymore)
By M. M. De Voe
Maybe you are a great cook but you really desperately need a night off.
Maybe you can’t afford takeout after that thing your daughter absolutely had to have.
Maybe tonight, you’re too busy to make something elaborate, honestly, too busy to breathe. When did everything get so hard? Where’s the break?
This is the break. It have could have your kids eat seconds and maybe thirds. Does that give you joy? This could be the best recipe you’ve ever seen.
Or hey, maybe you’ve just got chicken in your house (again) and you are so sick of your usual dishes you’re ready for something different.
Content Warning: This is not vegan. Not vegetarian. In fact, there are no vegetables in this recipe at all. Not one. It barely even GOES with vegetables. Maybe mushrooms. (Anyway mushrooms are probably sentient so who knows if we should even be eating them—when did every single choice become a moral quandary? Can we just stop?) Also this recipe is gluten-not-free. It has lactose. It’s high-calorie. High sodium. Involves pre-processed ingredients. Probably it’s not healthy in any way, shape, or form.
I mean, it’s still technically food.
Barely.
It is, however, unbelievably delicious and kids go crazy for it. Adults hate getting poppy seeds in their teeth, but grinning at your kids and asking them if you’ve got seeds in your teeth? Turns out this is VERY popular with the 10 and under set. And even teens will sometimes crack a smile. And having everyone spoon their own servings from the middle is surprisingly social and hard to do while holding a phone in your hand.
(Pro tip: Make them spoon their own food.)
Note: If you use organic chicken and butter maybe it’s slightly less bad for the planet than if you don’t. But not much.
But between you and me, health and the environment is not why you would choose to make this recipe. No. This is your guilty little secret. This is for when you can’t bring yourself to pull out a mixer. For when you’ve had it, your kid’s teacher called four times this week, your spouse is on your last nerve (who still has a spouse?), your other kid is making weird sounds and you’re not sure if that’s because they have an issue or if they’re just being intentionally annoying. This recipe is a secret weapon. This is a sanity-saving silver bullet. Use this recipe sparingly and your people will respond with screams of joy. (Browned casseroles always somehow make kids go wild. I have no idea why. Old media? Images from commercials of long-past family dinners? The surprise of what is below the crust? Who knows!)
Prep time is like five minutes and the 30 minutes in the oven while it’s baking is like a secret recess, a private break room no one has discovered yet. The recipe makes the house smell crazy-good, too, and will pull people from their bedrooms.
This is the perfect thing to make two nights BEFORE the big holiday – when you know you’re about to spend hours dealing with family conflict and settling the cousins and uncles and everyone wants bland food and no one eats the same vegetables. Just double it and double it again, depending on how many people happen to have invaded your home and expect you to cook for them.
Also there are poppy seeds, so expect your pickiest eaters NOT to eat it unless you smile craftily and raise your eyebrows with your witchiest giggle and offhandedly say, “oh those? I can’t tell you what they are. No they’re not peppers (laugh). They’re the secret ingredient.”
And when the whining and pleading is at its maximum, tell them in a whisper,
“It is a secret ingredient made from the flowers in the Wizard of Oz.”
Which like the best things a parent can say, is both miraculous and true.
The Ingredients:
2 lbs chicken, cooked, cut in give-or-take one-inch pieces (depending on the energy you have, this can be bought deboned as breasts and made in your favorite elaborate way with your best appliance suitable to cooking chicken in a succulent way – or – it can be chopped up leftovers from the chicken no one was home to eat when you bought it already rotisseried because you couldn’t figure out what to make for dinner and anyway everyone wasn’t sure what they were doing, but thank goodness the supermarket keeps the rotisserie chickens near the exit—don’t use flavored chicken leftovers though. This requires chicken-flavored chicken. White meats/breast cubes get better received in my house, but it’s a taste thing.)
1 8-oz carton sour cream (squeezy or scoop, doesn’t matter, full fat tastes better to me, but you do you)
1 can cream of chicken soup concentrate (just give in—use the Campbells with loads of sodium. Or don’t. It’s your kitchen.)
For topping:
1 ½ cups of Ritz Cracker crumbs (equal to one stack-package if you buy them in bulk)
1 T. Poppy Seeds (this might send you to the store but it’s really the only ingredient you don’t get to mess with. It’s called Poppy Seed Chicken. It needs Poppy Seeds. Go buy some.)
1 stick melted butter. (unsalted is better but if you’re desperate, go ‘head and give everyone heart failure) – also don’t sub margarine for this one. It isn’t as yummy.
OKAY now – The Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350F
- Mix sour cream and soup in a bowl
- Mix in the pre-cooked chicken
- Pour this sloppy mess into a shallow casserole dish
- Mix crumbs, butter and poppy seeds and sprinkle over top
- Bake at center of a 350F oven for 30 minutes
- Let sit for five-ten minutes depending on whether you’ve finished reading that article you started when you realized you suddenly have half an hour to yourself
You can extend this if you serve with mashed potatoes or rice or over pasta (if you still eat carbs) or have lots of mouths that need to be fed. (Double the sauce-to-chicken ratio to make it more like a runny sauce in this case.)
Delete this recipe after reading. You don’t want anyone knowing that you sometimes cook like this. And don’t use it too often—just when things get so bad that you absolutely, positively, need a minute to yourself. You’re welcome.
About:
M. M. De Voe is a fictionista, poet and all-around arts enabler. She founded Pen Parentis in 2014 to help writers stay on creative track after having kids. For more of her thoughts on life, subscribe to her free weekly blog “This is Ridiculous”.
