Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole with Bacon Wrapped Green Beans

For dinner tonight, we had a chicken and wild rice casserole with bacon wrapped green beans.

So, I'm my father's daughter. By that- I mean, I have a nasty habit of making really awesome food, but never being able to recreate it...because I didn't follow any one particular recipe or write down my changes...sorry hubs, I know that you loved dinner tonight, but we're never going to have it again. I mean, it's totally not my fault that I don't like following recipes and I prefer to figure out for myself how much to add, right?

Normally, this means we never have it again. I mean, I might try to recreate it, but it doesn't really work out. Tonight I made what T and I have decided is "the best dinner I've ever made". Seriously. It was that great. Now, the interesting thing is that I think I know how I made it. I think. As in, after I admitted to T that I had no idea exactly how I made something that tasted this heavenly, he told me to immediately go write down how I thought I made it and the amounts of various ingredients and stuff. So, obviously, I decided to write it down on my blog. :)

Warning: these recipes could possibly, totally suck. And that's okay. Sometimes things get made and are never made again. But, for my sake and yours, I hope these two recipes are a close recreation to the taste of heaven that T and I experienced tonight.

Chicken and Wild Rice Casserole
What You Need:

• 1 box of wild/long grain rice with seasonings (I used Uncle Ben's)
• 2 cups of chicken (shredded, precooked)
• 1 can of cream of chicken soup
• 1/4 cup of sour cream (this is a totally rough estimate- I took a spatula and scooped some out of the container and called it good)
• 1 and 1/4 cups of chicken broth (aka...I poured a cup and then put in a little bit more)
• A bit of italian seasoning, garlic powder, and black pepper (How much is a bit? I have no idea. I just picked up the seasonings and shook until I got a "happy feeling" in my tummy)

How to Make:

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl (chicken is cooked, rice is not). Stir. Stir again. And again.
3. Pour into a 9x13 pan.
4. Place in the oven for 45-50 minutes.
5. Enjoy!

Bacon Wrapped Green Beans

What You Need:

• Bacon (One strip per bundle)
• Green beans (3-4 per bundle- we used fresh and snapped off the ends, but you could probably use canned as well...it just might be a little messier, and I'd omit the oil since you wouldn't need the liquid)
• ~2 tbsp Olive Oil (I pour straight from the bottle, so I have no idea how much I really used)
• A bit of italian seasoning, garlic salt, and black pepper

How To Make:

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. Wrap 3-4 green beans in each slice of bacon. Place each of these bundles in a baking dish.
3. Season the bundles with a little bit of Italian seasoning, garlic salt, and black pepper. 
4. Drizzle a little bit of olive oil over the bundles- EMPHASIS on LITTLE. Bacon grease will collect in the pan, but you need a little bit of oil so that you can roll the bundles in the seasonings.
5. Cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes.
6. After 35 minutes, remove foil and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes.
7. Bacon should be slightly crispy, and beans should be tender- at this point, remove them from the oven. 
8. Take the bundles out of the pan (it will probably have grease and stuff on the bottom- you want to go ahead and get this soaking in the sink, because it's a pain to clean up), and place on a plate with paper towels on it to remove some of the grease.
9. Enjoy!

Yay! I hope you enjoy this meal as much as we did! Let us know in the comments if you try it out, if you made any wonderful, magnificent changes to yours, or if it totally sucked. :)