The Covered Dish - Phill's Chicken Casserole

This week I thought we'd start the column with a good tip and conclude the column with another good tip.  Tip #1, at Christmas 2024 I made a large crockpot of spaghetti for our Board of Directors.  For the sauce I used Aldi's Marinara sauce and their regular spaghetti sauce.  I used more of the Marinara than the Spaghetti sauce.  Everyone just kept raving about it at the time, and I brushed it off thinking:  'Yes, I liked it, but they can't be raving about a canned sauce like this?'  Jump to spring 2025, I'm reading my 'Cook's Country' magazine and famous chefs are commenting on their favorite pre-made products.  Sure enough, Aldi's Marinara was a top pick.  So, give it a try.
Our son, Phillip, is the writer of this week's recipe.  He gave me a hard time the other day because he says my recipes are not what the normal cook prepares.  True, I don't like to use lots of canned products, like soup, in my dishes.  He works in the insurance business and puts recipes on the back side of his marketing.  In the beginning he used good ole' mom's, recipes, now he's writing his own.  Actually; I was rather proud of him.  He wrote this for the staff , at one of the food pantry's in Harrison, AR,where he volunteers assisting seniors with Medicare.
He has some pretty standard ingredients in this chicken, broccoli and noodle casserole.  When I asked what he served with it, he stated:  'A green salad.'  His ingredients allow for a few substitutions here and there.  His meat is chicken, but I'm not so sure you couldn't play with the 'base' and do a tuna casserole of sorts.  
One thing I do, as I know many of you, is prepare chicken in advance and then freeze it for meals to come.  Sometimes I can walk in Walmart and pick up discounted rotisserie hens from the day before.  I'll pile in 2-3, and go home and process the meat into pre-measured bags for multiple meals.  The carcasses go in a huge pot and I make homemade stock.
Phillip makes comments about the ability to use either fresh broccoli or frozen in the casserole.  He also states the importance of using freshly grated cheese over pre-shredded any time you can.  This is so very true.  There are times when you truly have to use pre-bagged shredded cheese, but you will notice the flavor is different if you will start using fresh grated.  Remember powders are added to pre shredded cheese in order to keep them from sticking together.  
Before I present Phillip's yummy recipe, let's close with another tip.  When making a sandwich for travel, put 2 slices in your toaster facing each other, rendering only 2 toasted sides.  Use the toasted side for the inside, the toasting keeps the dressings from permeating the bread and getting soggy.  The outside is still the nice soft sandwich bread!   Simply Yours, The Covered Dish.

Phill's Chicken Casserole
1.25lbs, cooked chicken cut into bite size pieces, (20 ozs.)
16 ozs. Uncooked extra wide egg noodles
32 ozs. Frozen broccoli florets or 2 heads fresh, chopped
2 (10.5 oz.) cans cream of chicken soup
2 cups shredded yellow cheese, (fresh is best)
2/3 cup Sour cream or 6 ozs.
½ teaspoon garlic powder, or more if you choose
½ cup diced green onions
Salt and Pepper to taste

Gather a 9 x 13 baking pan, and preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  In a large pot of water, boil noodles until al dente.  Just before the noodles are done add the broccoli to the pot.  When finished, drain thoroughly.  In a large bowl bowl place chicken, chicken soup, sour cream, half the shredded cheese, garlic powder and onions.  Gently stir to blend.  Once the noodles & broccoli have drained well, add to the wet mixture.  Stirring gently so as not to break the noodles.  Pour into sprayed baking dish.  Bake until dish is bubbling hot, raise oven temperature to 425 and sprinkle remaining cheese over the top.  Slide into oven long enough for the cheese to melt rendering a nice topping.  Allow to set just a bit before serving.  Set out the salt and pepper and enjoy.  Should feed at least 6 -7 persons.