The Comfort Casserole (or "What can we throw in a pan?")

Most of the time I am making dishes from scratch- carefully breaded chicken, homemade sauces, soups that take longer to create than they do to eat. Then there are those times that I want something easy. Something thrown together. In this case, that something was a casserole.

This wasn't going to just be any casserole. It was going to be a comfort casserole. I was at work having a particularly difficult day, and started thinking about what I wanted for dinner. I wanted something comforting, and in this situation, that meant something cheesy, potato-y, and chicken-y.

What part of the chicken do the rings come from? 

I really love those bags of frozen chicken rings. Basically, they're just small chicken patties with the centers cut out, but yum. Seriously. I had a bag of diced potatoes, and a random package of marked down bacon, a bag of white onions, some green onions, a few Roma tomatoes, and a couple of half-empty bags of cheese.

I cooked the chicken rings in my toaster oven, then lined the bottom of the lasagna pan with them. The diced potatoes were cooked on the stove top with a little olive oil, and the bacon was done in a smaller pan on the stove top. I topped the chicken rings with a mixture of the browned potatoes, sliced onions, crumbled bacon, and shredded cheese. Popped it into the oven for 20 minutes or so at 400, and took it out. As I spooned the gooey concoction onto my plate, I topped it with some diced tomatoes and chopped green onion, and finished it off with some ranch dressing.

Not one of my more elegant dishes, but I'll be damned if it wasn't delicious. Sometimes the comfort foods are the best remedy for a bad day.