Comfort Food: Celery Chicken (Minus the Celery)

This dish is an ode to my Moma...

Growing up, my mom made this AMAZING dish I called Celery Chicken. She doesn't really "name" things or use recipes. I guess that's where I get my "throw a bunch of stuff in a pot" mentality towards cooking. :)

Yes, you've seen this picture a million times, but I don't see her very often, so you take

what you can get. :)

I'm going to include her recipe for Celery Chicken here because it's FANTASTIC. It isn't, unfortunately, a light recipe. I've lightened it up alot for my version.

Moma Flagg's Celery Chicken

- 1 Whole Cut-up Chicken

- 2 Cups flour

- 2 Eggs

- 6-8 Idaho potatoes, quartered

- 1 bag baby carrots

- 3 cans Cream of Celery Soup

- 2 Cups Milk

- 1 (Soup) Can of Water

- Salt and Pepper to taste

- Vegetable oil for cooking.

Directions

Beat two eggs in a medium sized bowl, and add in 1 cup of milk. On wax paper, pour 2 cups flour (salt and pepper the flour if desired). Dip raw chicken into egg-milk mixture and coat with flour. Fry chicken in hot oil until done.

In a (large) crockpot, put in cut-up potatoes, fried chicken pieces, soup, remaining milk, and a can of water into the crockpot. Cook on high for 2-3 hours, add in baby carrots and cook for 1-2 more hours. You will know it's done when the vegetables are tender. 

*Note, she sometimes used celery pieces in there too. Add with carrots.

This dish was ALWAYS served with cornbread. (My family is from Kentucky. It's what we do.)

Serves: An Entire Family for a Couple Days!!! :D

My version is healthier and simpler, but definitely nowhere near as tasty.

Adapted Celery Chicken

- 6-8 Chicken Tenderloins (frozen)

- 6 Small potatoes, halved

- 2 Cans Cream of Celery (although I used Cream o' Chicken tonight, thus No Celery)

- 2 Cans water

- Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

Throw it all in a crockpot on high for 5 hours. (See me do this here.) 

Done! :)

The most important thing is to put the corn muffin on the bottom of your bowl to soak up all the juicy goodness.

Like so...

This is Comfort Food with a capital C. Even though my "healthy" version doesn't taste the same, the smells and flavors take me back to her kitchen, and I love it.

Okay... entirely off the topic of food, but guess what? So, I'm making the corn muffins and I get this call. This lady says she's from a market research company, and our electric company has commissioned a round table to get opinions from users. My name came up on their list, and she wanted to see if I'd be interested. The first thing that comes to my lips is a BIG FAT NO, but then she says, we'll pay you $100 and it will only take two hours. I'm sorry, what? You'll pay me $50/hour to give you my opinion on my usage of electricity? Um... YES.

And, it was totally legit. Who knew? Have you ever heard of that before? Why am I not a professional opinion-giver?!?

Ha! It's on March 4. I'll be sure to tell you all about my professional opinion-giving experience. :D

Okay, done for the night. Off to work on some editing and then go night night. All that flopping around like a fish today wore me out.

Is there a traditional family dish you've re-tooled to fit into your healthy lifestyle?