Tonight I made the best dinner I have made in a long time. Now I know I don't cook very often, but this was the best. I always hate when Aaron gets home from a trip and then has to cook, so tonight I was a “real” wife and I cooked dinner. He actually came home while I was cooking and we cooked together and that was kinda fun too.
This was great and we realized you could use just about any veggies where the mushrooms and peppers are. Next time I'll also just bake or boil some chicken instead of buying a rotisserie chicken from the store. You can also leave out the bread if you don't want it and I don't see why you couldn't leave out the cheese if you didn't want it either. 🙂
Ingredients:
1 roasted chicken
8 oz dried spaghetti or linguine, broken in half (we used spaghetti)
12 oz fresh asparagus, trimmed and cut in 1-inch pieces (we didn't use this b/c we didn't have it, but cant wait to make this again and add this)
8 oz small whole fresh mushrooms (ours were cut)
3 red and/or yellow sweet peppers, seeded and cut in 1-inch pieces (we used 2 red and one green)
2 tbsp butter
1/4 cup flour
black pepper (as much as you want)
1 14-oz can of chicken broth
3/4 cup of milk
1/2 cup shredded swiss cheese
1 tbsp finely shredded lemon peel (don't leave this out it is great!)
2 slices sourdough bread, cut in cubes
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp snipped fresh parsley
Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Remove meat from chicken and cut chicken pieces in chunks equal to 3 cups.
2. In Dutch oven cook spaghetti according to package directions. Add asparagus the last 1 minute of cooking. Drain. Return to pan.
3. Meanwhile, in large skillet cook mushrooms and sweet pepper sin hot butter over medium heat for 8 to 10 minutes or until mushrooms are tender, stirring occasionally. Stir in flour and black pepper until well combined. Add broth and milk all at once. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly.
4. Add mushroom mixture, chicken pieces, swiss cheese, and half of the lemon peel to pasta mixture in dutch oven. Toss gently to coat. Spoon pasta mixture into 3-quart rectangular baking dish.
5. In medium bowl toss together bread cubes, olive oil, and remaining lemon peel. Spread break cube mixture on pasta mixture. Bake, uncovered, for 15 minutes or until heated through. Let stand for 5 minutes before serving. Sprinkle with parsley before serving.
Makes 10 (1 cup) servings
Each serving 282 calories, 10 g fat
This was delicious and my boys LOVED it. They ate two helpings and didn't even realize the good peppers they were eating!!!
Enjoy! Let me know if you make this one for your family!
Thanks Jamie! I am getting ready to make my “meal list” for the week and was getting super bummed b/c I am in a cooking funk! I’m like Aaron, I love to cook, but I just don’t know what to do for this week. I checked your blog and waalah! instant recipe! I am going to try this out this week. Did you use the whole chicken?
BTW…I was eating up the last pics that you posted of all of your 4 munchkins. I particularly love the one where Amos is inhaling sweet Story’s face…priceless!!
I’m going to try this later this week! I’ll let you know how it goes as I am cooking challenged!
made the dish last night! It was extremely yummy!:)
I used chicken breasts, asparagus, only 2 green peppers (the orange and red were ridiculously $$$), and I added salt to the mushroom mix. I also used a pasta that was whole grain. You were right it was very tasty! Derek took leftovers for lunch today actually!:) Thanks for the suggestion! I’ll let you know how the Mexican Casserole turns out later in the week!
Karen glad you liked it! We said it needed salt too! We used whole wheat spaghetti too and love it! I’m thinking you could use lots of different types of pasta too.
🙂
Maybe I did something wrong? This dish totally did not turn out for me! I kept adding salt thinking it was missing something and finally decided it was just getting saltier and not tasting better?? I don’t know what happened, but it was fun to try something new! Our 16 month old loved it!
Kristine I hope I didn’t write the recipe wrong! We both said it needed salt too, and I will for sure add that next time!
No, I am sure it was all me….especially after it worked for everyone else! I’ll have to give it another go…