In the Kitchen with Karin: Chicken and Mushroom Bake

This is a Rachael Ray recipe out of her magazine that has become a staple in our household. We LOVE mushrooms here at our house and it is the perfect recipe to use leftover rotisserie/baked chicken or even leftover turkey which we did after Christmas. Such a good and easy recipe. Even my son will eat the chicken and mushroom part - he has an aversion to rice.

So so good and super easy!

Today's ingredients:
1-2 tablespoons butter
10 oz. mushrooms
1 ½ tablespoons flour
½ cup marsala wine or white wine or chicken stock
½ cup heavy cream or half and half
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf (Italian) parsley
S&P
1 cup long-grain rice
2 packed cups coarsely chopped or shredded rotisserie chicken
2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

If you don't have any leftover chicken or turkey around, but still want to make this, about 2 chicken breasts will suffice. I just brought some water to a boil, added my chicken and lowered to a simmer for about 10 min. If you keep boiling instead of simmering you'll get tough chicken instead of nice juicy chicken. Once it's done, drain and let cool. Shred or dice.

Preheat your oven to 350. In a large skillet, heat the butter over medium-high heat until just melted. I only used 1 T. of butter this time and it worked just fine.

Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. This recipe calls for 10 oz of mushrooms, but I used 16 oz. since we love mushrooms in our household. It doesn't affect the recipe at all.

Sprinkle the flour on top and stir for 1 minute.

Stir in the wine or chicken stock and cream* and simmer, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, about 3 minutes.

*Last time I made this I had some leftover half & half and decided to try and see if it would work. Worked like a charm, so if you need to cut calories fat free half & half works great!