If anyone was reading my Facebook page last weekend during Blizzard Nemo, you will have seen I was on a cooking and baking roll. One of the dishes I made was this Chicken Florentine Casserole, which I found on my little iPad app for allrecipes.com. The recipe calls for some seriously heavy ingredients, so I lightened the load a little bit with some fat free and reduced fat ingredients, but absolutely not to the cost of taste. This is one of the tastiest and heartiest dishes I have made in a long time and was perfect comfort food for blizzard weather.
Chicken Florentine Casserole
Adapted from a recipe on AllRecipes.com
Ingredients
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1/4 cup butter
1/2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 tablespoon lemon juice1 (10.75 ounce) can of condensed cream of mushroom soup – I used Campbell’s 99% fat free
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
1/2 cup fat free half-and-half
1/2 cup reduced fat grated Parmesan cheese
2 (13.5 ounce) frozen spinach, thawed and drained
4 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced
2 cups reduced fat shredded mozzarella cheese
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Place the chicken breast halves on a baking sheet; bake 20 to 30 minutes, until no longer pink and juices run clear. Remove from heat and set aside.
Increase the oven temperature to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stirring constantly, mix in the garlic, lemon juice, cream of mushroom soup, Italian seasoning, half-and-half, and Parmesan cheese.
Arrange the spinach over the bottom of a 9×9 inch baking dish. Cover the spinach with the mushrooms. Pour half the mixture from the saucepan over the mushrooms.
Arrange chicken breasts in the dish, and cover with the remaining sauce mixture. Top with mozzarella cheese. Bake 20 to 25 minutes in the 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) oven, until bubbly and lightly browned.
I served this dish with egg noodles, and it was just sooo good, especially accompanied by a glass of one of my favorite Chardonnay’s, the Toasted Head.
This is also a dish that can be adapted from Chicken to shrimp and fish.
