Chicken and Biscuit Casserole

Happy New Years! I slept in until 10:30 today. How about you? It felt great! We were in the city to see Phantom of the Opera at the Cadillac Palace Theatre. It was a great show! We took the train to and from the city, and even though it was a short walk from the train station to the theater, it was a very cold and snowy one!

It's very snowy here today and still snowing. We might go sledding...except it is only about 20 degrees so it might be too cold.

This weather usually prompts me to make a heavy, hot casserole type meal. I was reminded that I have this sort of recipe in my "waiting to be posted" pile. This Chicken and Biscuit Casserole is extremely easy and affordable and appears in the "Tried & True Favorites" cookbook at AllRecipes.com. I did make a modification noted below.

It's sort of a large chicken pot pie, but instead of a full layered crust, you just drop buttermilk biscuits on top. My modification was that I used store-bought refrigerated buttermilk biscuits as I used in the Biscuit Topped Italian Casserole dish. The original recipe has you make your own biscuits using a baking mix. All the veggies included make this recipe a nicely packed meal.

Chicken and Biscuit Casserole (Adapted from Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped baby carrots
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
4 cups chicken broth
1 (10 oz) can peas, drained
4 cups diced, cooked chicken meat
1 (12 oz) package refrigerated buttermilk biscuits

1. Preheat oven to 350 degree F. Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.

2. In a skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Cook and stir the garlic, onion, celery, and carrots in butter until tender. Mix in the flour, sugar, salt, 1 teaspoon dried basil, and pepper. Stir in broth, and bring to a boil. Stirring constantly, boil 1 minute, reduce heat, and stir in peas. Simmer 5 minutes, then mix in chicken. Transfer mixture to the prepared baking dish.

3. Place biscuits on top of chicken mixture.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes. Cover with foil, and bake for 10 more minutes. To serve, spoon chicken mixture over biscuits.