In The Kitchen ~ Awesome Chicken!

I've decided to start sharing what I cook.  The good stuff anyway.  Because I like to cook.  A lot.  I also love to read cookbooks for pleasure.  A lot.  I want to share some of the messes I make what I cook in the hopes that I will get some of my family and friends to share with me what they cook and I can put it on here for all to share.  I have family and friends from Nevada to New Jersey, from Texas to Alaska and several states in between.  I think it would be fun to share our eats!  Anybody want to send me something?  How about it New Jersey?  Nevada?  Ohio?  Texas?  Illinois?  Anybody?

As I said, I like to read cookbooks.  I have a ridiculous amount nice collection.

This is some of them waiting to find a home here at the House on the Hill.  I love to read regional cookbooks and tend to buy them as souvenirs.  My family likes to bring them back to me from places they visit too.  Lately, I have discovered the world of Cooking/Food Blogs and can get lost in that cyberworld for hours.

However, when it comes time to actually cook, I usually do not go find a recipe from my books or the internet.  Instead I tend to get in the kitchen and just throw things together, relying on memories from all that reading.  Sometimes it turns out great, sometimes just so so and sometimes not so good.

Last night was a winner.  I had chicken breasts and didn't know what I wanted to do with them.  As ususal, I did not take the time to look for a recipe but went from memory again, using stuff I had on hand and needed to use up.  Like 2 lonely slices of bacon and a small amount of deli ham.  I think I ended up combining more than 1 recipe memory and tweaking them all.  This is what I ended up with.

It tasted better than it looked - since it kind of looks like two globby things with peas on the side. M wanted to know what it was and I told him I had just thrown the chicken breasts together with what I had and he said "Well, this is awesome chicken!"  Thus the name.

Awesome Chicken!

4 chicken breasts
Black Forest Deli Ham
2 slices of bacon
1 small onion
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup
1 cup sour cream
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup cooking sherry
2 tsp seasoning blend (about - I tend not to measure)
potato chips, crumbled for topping

Heat oven to 350.  Oil casserole that will hold your chicken.  I used cooking spray.  Place ham in bottom of casserole, just where chicken will be.  Place chicken on top of ham and then 1/2 slice of bacon on top of chicken.  Slice onion into rings and spread over bacon covered chicken.

Mix soup, sour cream, chicken broth, sherry and spices; pour over everything in casserole.  Bake covered for about 1 hour at 350 degrees.  Sprinkle chips on for last 15 minutes.

My current personal favorite seasoning blend.

and what it has in it.

I served this over and with mashed potatoes because M is a mashed potato freak.  In retrospect, I think it would have been better over noodles and also would have been better to have flattened the chicken a little.  It probably would have looked better too, it was yummy though!

So what are you having for dinner tonight?