Alpine Chicken Casserole

This is a recipe we first had at Nancy's sister Linda's house.  Even though there is no pineapple in the recipe, Linda's husband called it Pineapple Chicken Casserole.  Somehow the celery took on that flavor for him, I think.  I make a couple of major substitutions to turn it into something I can eat these days.  The original recipe uses Swiss cheese (which is probably why "Alpine" is part of the name, but I used goat's milk cheddar cheese instead - Jean doesn't like Swiss cheese, and I have not found a goat's or sheep's milk Swiss cheese yet.  Daiya does make a no-dairy, no-soy Swiss cheese, so I could use that.  The other substitution I use is soy-free Vegan mayo (Vegenaise or Earth Balance Mindful Mayo) instead of Miracle Whip Light.

We stopped at Bloomingfoods in Bloomington on Sunday, and I bought an Amish chicken.  I cooked it overnight in our crockpot.  And saved the resulting broth for making soup later this week.  My brother cooked a chicken in their pressure cooker while we were visiting last month.  That was a pretty darn quick and impressive way to cook it.  We don't have a working pressure cooker, tho, and I like driving the cats nuts with the smells overnight with the crockpot method.

UPDATE, 9/15/16

I decided to see if 'Pineapple Chicken Casserole' actually tastes good with pineapple in it.  It does. This morning I put a whole fryer chicken in the slow cooker with 2 cups of water. I left it on Low for 8 hours. Then I took it out of the slow cooker and let it cool enough I didn't totally burn my fingers getting the meat and tearing it into bite-sized pieces. Instead of 2 cups of diced celery, I used 1 cup of diced celery and one cup of drained pineapple tidbits. The 'cheese' I used was Daiya Gouda. I think I'll probably include pineapple in this recipe most of the time from now on!

INGREDIENTS

4 cups cut/torn up chicken pieces (basically 1 chicken)

2 cups celery, diced (or 1 cup diced celery and 1 cup drained pineapple tidbits)

2 cups bread cubes (basically two slices of bread cut into cubes)

1/4 cup onion, diced

1 cup soy-free Vegenaise

Salt and pepper to taste

2 cups shredded cheese (original recipe uses Swiss, I use non-dairy or goats milk cheese)

1/4 cup slivered or sliced almonds

COOKING INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix together chicken, celery, bread cubes, onion,  Vegenaise, salt & pepper, and cheese.  Transfer to 2 1/2 qt casserole dish.  Top with almonds.  Bake 25-35 minutes, until heated through and cheese melted.