Cheese & wine chicken

I got this recipe from Adam, who got it from his mom. When I used to visit him, I’d always demand that he make me this first thing. I think I added the name of the recipe to my files at some point; I don’t recall Adam or his mom ever calling it anything other than “that chicken recipe”… (Tangent: My mom has in her recipe files recipes called “Special Recipe Fish” and “Special Recipe Chicken,” which have nothing in common except that they were my family’s collective favorite fish and chicken recipes, respectively, when I was a kid. Hmm, one of these days I ought to make Special Recipe Fish again!)

Ingredients:

• 4 boneless chicken breasts,* cut into bite sized pieces (1 ½ – 1 ¾ lbs.)
• 6 slices swiss cheese
• ½ cup white wine
• salt, pepper, tarragon to taste
• ¼ cup melted butter
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 2 cups Pepperidge Farm stuffing

* Or thighs. I’m sure everyone knows the deal on chicken breasts vs. thighs: the thighs are cheaper but fattier.

Directions:

1. Put chicken pieces in greased 9×13-inch baking dish. Season with salt, pepper, and tarragon and top with cheese slices.
2. Mix soup and wine, pour over chicken.
3. Mix stuffing and melted butter, crumble on top.
4. Bake uncovered at 300 for 90 minutes.

Be generous with the cheese and soup and wine and stuffing. They’re the best parts. The chicken is almost superfluous. (Though maybe I say that only because I’m not much of a carnivore.)

The only bad thing about this recipe is that it takes 90 minutes to cook… sometimes more like two hours. Conveniently, you probably have extra swiss cheese and white wine sitting around, so you can serve yourself some while you’re waiting.

Also while we’re waiting for my dinner to cook, I’ll introduce you to my grocery bag.

I made my grocery bag using the How to sew a curved bag gusset tutorial over at the U-handblog. It’s one of the most useful things I’ve ever made. In the picture above, it’s holding all the ingredients necessary for the cheese & wine chicken (sans wine — I forgot my ID and had to go back out for that later, le sigh — and also sans chicken, which was leaking, so I put it in a separate plastic bag) plus ingredients for the next two dinners I’ll make, which, since I’m cooking for one, is almost a week and a half’s worth of food.

I don’t have a car, so my grocery bag makes shopping much easier. I hardly ever buy more food than can fit in the bag (thanks to not having a car, of course), and it slings comfortably over my shoulder with a padded strap. Plus, it’s all in cheerful colors, so it makes me feel a bit more cheerful when I pull it out.

And now my food is done, after taunting me with its smell for an hour and a half: