Chicken, Mushroom, Stuffing Casserole

We had company coming over and I felt like making something easy but also comforting and crowd pleasing.  As it turned out, my son left work and was sick as a dog, so we cancelled our guests.  Anyway, this came to my mind for the casserole dish I would create.  I still made it as I had all the ingredients now.  It is so not diet friendly in any sense of the way of healthy eating but I like to make casseroles for them.  Besides that though, I think it'd be great with leftover turkey.  I used rotisserie chicken for this tonight, purely for the ease of it. I made a simple chicken gravy to serve with this.  I put cheese on because my son is not a huge fan of "stuffing" (I know, he's crazy!  😜) ...so both the sausage and cheese were added to make it more likeable/palatable for him:

• 1 rotisserie chicken, removed from bones and sliced into bite size pieces.  I used the skin too but that is optional
• 3/4 lb hormone free pork chorizo sausage, removed from casings and crumbled
• Cooking spray
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 baby loaf (demi) day-old country bread, cut into pieces like stuffing (I used a serrated knife the night before and let it sit in an uncovered bowl overnight)

• 3 cups organic low sodium "Better than Bouillon" chicken stock
• 3 stalks of celery, sliced
• 1 white onion, diced
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 1 tablespoon poultry seasoning
• 1/2 cup Italian parsley, chopped finely and more for garnish
• Kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper, to taste
• 1/2 lb mushrooms, sliced and browned
• 1 cup old cheddar cheese, grated

Remove the chicken from the bones and chop the skin and meat into bite size pieces. I put my bones into the freezer to make stock.  Saute the onions, sausage and celery in olive oil until tender.  Saute the mushrooms separately.

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Grease a 13 x 9 inch baking dish with cooking spray

In a large bowl add the bread, stock, celery, onion, sausage, eggs, parsley, poultry seasoning, S&P and mix until well combined.

In the baking dish, layer chicken & mushrooms, S&P, then bread mixture.

Repeat, ending with the bread mixture.

Top with cheese.

Bake for 1 hour until golden brown on top, crisp and bubbling.  Rest it while the gravy is being made.  Serve with garnish and desired gravy amount.  Pepper jelly or cranberry sauce or anything like that would be a good condiment as well.

I knew I would be sawing logs and doing heavy Zzzzz's after this meal, especially on a Friday night which is day I do not like cooking on (I'd rather marathon Netflix).  I rarely eat like this now and haven't since Xmas time.  That being said, my son said it was delicious, I thought so too but with not as much enthusiasm.  I think that may be because I felt more guilty than gracious?  I didn't love the cheese on it but he really did.  It tasted exactly how you expect it would.  The bread was a perfect type for this dish.  If I made it again, I'd probably forgo the poultry seasoning and use fresh rosemary, sage and thyme in its place.