Scalloped Chicken Supper

Tasha is thirty-six weeks. The baby is the size of a honeydew melon, according to the app Kayla showed me, which tracks the baby's size by comparing it to produce, which I find both helpful and disrespectful. A baby is not a melon. A baby is a baby. But I understand the impulse to measure the immeasurable. We do the same thing with love — try to quantify it, contain it, compare it to something smaller so it fits in our understanding. It never fits.

Marcus calls me every few days now. The boy is nervous. First-time father nervous, which is the most useless and most necessary kind of nervousness. He keeps asking me what he should know, what he should do, what he should buy. I told him, "Baby, there is nothing you need to buy that matters half as much as just being there. Show up. Be present. Change the diapers. Hold the baby. Let Tasha sleep. That's the whole job." He said, "That sounds too simple." I said, "Simple and easy aren't the same thing."

Earl has been having a bad week. The breathing is worse — heavy, labored, especially at night. He wakes up gasping and I wake up next to him and I put my hand on his chest and I feel it working, his heart, that stubborn organ that has been patched and medicated and prayed over for fifteen years. Dr. Pham adjusted his medications again last month. The diuretic. The beta blocker. The statin. The aspirin. He takes eight pills a day and he hates every one and he takes them anyway because I hand them to him with his orange juice every morning and he knows better than to argue.

I don't sleep well anymore, baby. Not because of my own body — my body is tired enough to sleep anywhere, anytime — but because I listen. I lie in the dark and I listen to Earl breathe. Every inhale, every exhale. I count them the way I used to count the children's breaths when they were babies in the crib. I listen for the pause, the catch, the silence that would mean something terrible. It hasn't come. But I listen anyway, because that's what love does after sixty-three years. It stays awake.

Made chicken and dumplings this week. Comfort food for a hard week. The dumplings float in the broth like little clouds, and when you eat them, they dissolve on your tongue like a warm thought. Earl ate a bowl and a half and fell asleep in his chair, breathing easier than he has all week, and I covered him with the afghan and I let him rest.

Now go on and feed somebody.

Chicken and dumplings is what I reach for first when a week turns heavy — but when I’ve already made that and Earl still needs feeding and the days are still long, I turn to my Scalloped Chicken Supper, which is the same spirit in a different pot: creamy, soft, warm all the way through, the kind of thing that asks nothing of the person eating it. Earl had a second helping and I didn’t say a word about it. Sometimes the best medicine is the kind that doesn’t taste like medicine at all.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 45 min | Total Time: 1 hr 5 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

3 cups cooked chicken, shredded or cubed
1 can (10.5 oz) condensed cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup yellow onion, finely diced
1/2 cup celery, finely diced
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
35 buttery round crackers (such as Ritz), crushed (about 1 1/2 cups)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped (optional, for garnish)

Instructions

Preheat the oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish with butter or nonstick spray and set aside.
Mix the filling. In a large bowl, combine the shredded chicken, cream of chicken soup, sour cream, chicken broth, onion, celery, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Stir until everything is evenly combined and creamy.
Fill the dish. Spread the chicken mixture into the prepared baking dish in an even layer.
Make the cracker topping. In a small bowl, toss the crushed crackers with the melted butter until all the crumbs are coated.
Top the casserole. Sprinkle the buttered cracker crumbs evenly over the top of the chicken mixture, covering it fully.
Bake. Bake uncovered for 40 to 45 minutes, until the topping is deep golden brown and the filling is bubbling at the edges.
Rest and serve. Remove from oven and let rest 5 minutes before serving. Garnish with fresh parsley if you like. Serve warm, straight from the dish.

Nutrition (per serving)

Scalloped Chicken Supper — The Dish I Make When Somebody Needs to Rest