King Ranch Casserole -Not Now, Not Ever Again!

You know how when you have a really bad experience, everything connected to that experience is forever tainted in your memory? I remember in college, I stopped one morning for a sausage biscuit from a popular fast food restaurant; later that day I got sick, then eventually found that I had contracted mononucleosis. To this day, a sausage biscuit from that place is off limits for me. I just can’t do it. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the mono, but for some reason it was the catalyst to the illness in my mind.

This morning, I feel the same way about King Ranch Chicken casserole. I first heard of this recipe from my favorite, Beth Moore. It intrigued me then and just the other day I saw it in a magazine and knew I was destined to make it. I made a special grocery store trip yesterday to get the few ingredients I didn’t have on hand and spent a few lovely moments in the kitchen creating it yesterday afternoon, anticipating the yummy, bubbly goodness we would enjoy for dinner.

As the casserole cooked, my daughter and I decided to go outside and enjoy the beautiful day. We played in our back yard for a while and then decided to clear up the garage a bit before going back inside.

She and our dog Georgia played in our front yard as I started to tidy the garage. I had already placed two garbage bags in the garage ready for the trash can, and I had one more right inside the laundry room door. I took a look to make sure all was well with my child; she and our dog were happily playing at the edge of the woods in the front of our property. I went into the garage and then opened the door to the laundry to get the other trash bag. I walked to our trash can and then turned – only to find that my child and the dog were both no where in sight.

Immediately I ran to the backyard, thinking that they had wandered back there to continue playing. No dog, no child! I ran to the other side of our house, making a circle back to the front, still no dog, no child! At this point, extreme panic set in and caused every adrenaline gland in my body to accelerate. I ran inside, calling all the while, hoping that she and the dog were inside the house. Of course, again, no dog, no child, only deafening silence. With the blood running cold in my veins, I grabbed our phone and frantically called my neighbor. She and her son quickly met me outside and began helping me call my daughter. Seconds later, I did what I never want to ever do again, I dialed 911. As the operator came on the line, sheer panic had set in and it was all I could do to get the words out of my mouth. I still can’t write those words. While on the phone with the 911 operator, my dog suddenly appeared, but my daughter did not. Since I had been on the phone, I didn’t even know what direction the dog came from, and "Lassie", she is not – no steady barking in the direction of the danger, no yipping at my heels, NOTHING. She just sat and looked at me as I screamed at her to tell me where Hannah was… she is fired as a Labrador RETRIEVER!! Retriever, as in retrieving and BRINGING BACK things – not leaving them. Oh goodness, my next dog will be a bloodhound!

Soon, I heard the wail of sirens and the panic was even more real as I came to grips that this was really happening, my daughter was no where to be found and oh, friends, I can't begin to tell you the countless things that rolled through my scattered mind at this point in the story.

It is still such a blur. Panic does that I guess. I remember the two kind policemen, Haynie and Lloyd, my husband’s calm voice on the phone, the sweet 911 operator, my neighbor, her wet hair tied in a towel as she and her son scoured the street and woods for my daughter. But the best memory that will forever hang in my mind’s picture gallery is the one of my other neighbors, coming into our driveway on their golf cart with my Hannah in their lap. The joy of that moment is going to last all my life, all my life. It was the second best time I have ever had looking at her, the first being as I gazed at her through the nursery window at the hospital for the very first glimpse of this gift sent from Heaven and God, Himself, all wet and warm and stretched out for the first time in nine months, sound asleep.

The drama ended almost as quickly as it had begun, the police gave Hannah a talking to about not leaving the yard and crossing the street alone, for you see, in the brief moment I turned to go into the garage, she had followed our dog (the FIRED one) across the street to the new house, where the neighbors weren’t home and where there lives a new puppy. She was found by my neighbors happily playing with the new pup – she didn’t even realize she was lost. The police left with sirens quiet this time, and my neighbors, who had all come to help, soon scattered back home. Hannah and I came back inside and I hugged her and hugged her and hugged her until she asked me to stop.

Oh – and the casserole, well, it ended up being a little crisp on top, but my husband said it was the yummiest thing he had tasted in a while. As for me – it will always be the casserole I was cooking the day Hannah wandered away from home.

King Ranch Chicken Casserole may be a great recipe, but I couldn’t eat it last night, and I don’t think I ever will be able to again.