Chicken Noodle Soup Casserole

Today I made this recipe I found on The Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen Blog.  It was absolutely wonderful! Our entire family devoured it and couldn't think of a single thing we didn't like about it.  So I wanted to share how I made it since it is a little different than the actual recipe.  And it is full of things that are common to have around.  I felt a little sinful not sharing it too, it was great.

First, I roasted the chicken breasts in the oven at 425 with some olive oil and salt and pepper.  The recipe calls for boiled chicken but I hate the smell of boiled chicken so I chose to do the more flavorful option. 

Then I cut up carrots, celery, and half an onion to saute in 1/2 a stick of butter.

I also grated up some garlic into the pot.  In with the veggies I sprinkled thyme and some pepper.  I didn't use salt because the butter was salted already.

After the veggies got pretty soft and the onions translucent, I spooned in a huge spoonful of sour cream and a can of cream of mushroom soup.  The original recipe calls for a can each of cream of chicken and cream of mushroom but I cut it down for our family and just used one can. 

The next step was to boil some pasta.  The recipe called for quite a bit but I cut it down.  You'll have to check the recipe for sure and then I used about 3/4 of what it said.  The noodles can overpower it and we really loved all the chunks of other stuff.  And if you use too much pasta it can get a little dry.  The recipe also called for angel hair pasta, I thought that was perfect.  I got a lot of lip about it from Dustin (he thought they should've been fettuccine noodles) but when it was finished he agreed that those were perfect.

About this time, I checked in and of course my lovely assistant was up to no good.  You might not be able to see it here, but she was covered in green, as in crayon, that she had been eating.  Yes, she is missing a shoe and yes, we need to sweep our floor (or let the vacuuming dogs take a stroll through)!

Once the pasta is cooked, the chicken is probably cool enough to chunk up into smallish pieces.

Then I mixed everything together in a big bowl.  Mix it really well because I do have to admit that the only complaint we had was that the chicken wasn't distributed enough.  Also, I broke the pasta in half to help with this step too.  At this point, Dustin came in and asked if he could just put his face in the pan and start eating.  It smelled awesome already and it really looked great.  I couldn't help but agree with his thought!

This goes in the oven at 375 for about 30-35 minutes.  In the meantime, clean up the green crayon, sweep the floor and read a few books to your baby.  She'll appreciate the extra love.

And then once your casserole has been cooking for awhile, crunch up a whole sleeve of Ritz crackers.  I used the whole wheat kind and they were delish.   Let it cook about 10 minutes more after that. 

This is what comes out of the oven!  YUM!! 

And this is what the crowd thought.