Mom Snyder's Bread Filling

Total Time: 1 hr Preparation Time: 30 mins Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients

• Servings: 8
• 6 slices bacon
• 4 -5 stalks celery, finely diced
• 1 loaf bread, bread may be few days old (, potato or half loaf , half multi grain)
• 2 medium onions, medium to finely diced
• 3 (10 1/2 ounce) cans condensed chicken and stars soup or 3 (10 1/2 ounce) cans chicken noodle soup
• 3 large eggs
• 2 -3 cups mashed potatoes (fresh or prepared flakes)
• salt
• pepper
• onion powder (may add garlic powder also)

Recipe

• 1 preheat oven to 350°f.
• 2 tear bread into bite sized pieces.
• 3 slice bacon into small bite size pieces about 1/2-inch wide (tip: partially freezing bacon makes cutting easier, or you can fry bacon and rip into small pieces after it cools).
• 4 cook bacon over medium heat until done. remove bacon and add to bread. reserve bacon fat and return pan to stove.
• 5 add celery to pan-sauté until no longer firm (you may cover pan to speed up cooking time-just check routinely). add onions and cook until tender (you may do celery and onion separate if you're afraid you may overcook celery).
• 6 add salt, pepper, and onion & garlic powders to celery to taste (go easy on salt--just because other ingredients already contain salt).
• 7 add celery/onions to bread/bacon.
• 8 add mashed potatoes (2-3 cups--i think i use about three, but it may be two--i just "scoop" potatoes into mix. (tip-if using fresh and still hot wait until they cool to add egg to mix).
• 9 add three cans condensed chicken and star or chicken noodle soup (note: if using chicken noodle, you'll want to break up noodle fine while mixing by hand)--just soup as is--no water.
• 10 add three eggs.
• 11 okay-here's the part not for the squeamish: mix by hand--(yep-get your hands in and squish all the ingredients together--it's not an attractive looking mix, unbut wait til ya bake it--).
• 12 place in a greased (i use butter or margarine) 9x13-inch baking pan about an inch and a half thick. press mix into pan--you may have more than pan--i get about a 9x13 and a pie pan's worth. do not make too thick--this increases cooking time and doesn't seem to taste as good.
• 13 bake at 350°f for about 30-45 minutes. time depends on how fast your oven actually cooks. i don't really look at the clock so much as the browning of the filling. you want a golden brown top (golden!). just check for doneness if you layered thickly in pan.
• 14 remove from oven when golden brown and cooked through (note: glass dishes cook faster and brown bottom-aluminum will not brown bottom. your filling may be done faster if you use pyrex).
• 15 set pan on cooling rack. let pan sit and slightly cool before cutting into servings (if filling cools completely before you actually serve, just reheat in microwave first).
• 16 you may bake this a day in advance an reheat (my hubby and i even snack on it cold).