Buffalo Chicken-Sausage Casserole

I love ladies nights. I am pretty lucky and rather impressed with the fact that I am still close to my best friends from highschool...well not all of them. It can be hard when some move out of state, or get married and have children. I try and keep in touch with those of my friends on different pages of life than I...

My girlfriends and I try to have a ladies night as often as we can. It tends to be every friday and last night we got together to go see the movie "Bridesmaids". I was not sure what to expect it because I found that the previews weren't exceptionally funny...but I quickly found out that this was because they couldn't possibly show the funny parts on the previews...

This movie had a raunchy humor...meaning I loved it. If you are like me and have a sick twisted humor, then you will enjoy this movie. I wasn't too "chick-flicky" but yet a perfect movie to go see with your girls.

Now, these two girls I went with are the ones I laugh with the most. The three of us are rather goofy...in fact we're sometimes just odd. So just the fact that I was with them, made the movie that much more funny. Has anyone else ever noticed that movies and your percieved level of their "funny" often depends on who you are watching it with?

Funny how that works.

On another note. Has that chicken-sausage that is always hanging out in the organic meats section caught anyone elses eye? I bought the garlic one once to make this sausage with quick sauerkraut. It's not exactly sausage but it is still pretty good. Well my heart skipped a beat when I saw they had a buffalo-chicken one.

Score!

There was a slight problem though...the links just sat patiently in my freezer for weeks before I could come up with a way to use it. I didn't want to just throw it into anything...I wanted to come up with something that screamed buffalo-chicken...since I am kind of obsessed with it.

Well, I came up with two things...I couldn't decide on one...making decisions is too exhausting...so I did both. Win-win.

I made a buffalo chicken-sausage casserole (seen here) and a buffalo chicken blue cheese penne. The penne may be my preferred dish (yes, I am teasing you) but this was good as well. Both can be changed and played around with to your liking because I know some people don't love blue cheese, or celery or hot sauce...these are the same people I think should be labeled legally insane, but hey, to each their own...

Buffalo Chicken-Sausage Casserole
Dame Good

Ingredients:

16 oz Al Fresco all-natural buffalo chicken-sausage, sliced
2 cups brown rice
1 3/4 cup reduced-sodium chicken stock
1 cup white onion, chopped
3 gloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup fat-free ranch dressing
4 oz reduced-fat crumbled blue cheese
10.5 oz 98% fat-free cream of chicken soup
1 1/2 cup celery, chopped
1 cup carrots, shredded
15 oz can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
3 tablespoons franks buffalo hot sauce
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon dried parsely
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F.

Cook brown rice according to box using the chicken stock instead of water. While rice is cooking, heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and heat olive oil. Add onions, red pepper and celery and cook until tender, about 5-7 minutes. Add garlic and carrots and continue cooking for about a minute or 2, just until garlic is fragrant. Toss the chicken-sausage in and stir just until heated through. Remove skillet from heat and add paprika, cumin some salt and pepper.

In a small bowl mix ranch dressing, cream of chicken, hot sauce, parsely and blue cheese and stir until mixed. In a large bowl toss the cooked rice with the cooked vegetables. Add the wet ingredients to the rice mixture and stir until thoroughly mixed.

Pour the mixture into a prepared 9-in x 13-in casserole pan. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the top is golden. Serve warm.