Thursday, March 02, 2006

Three-cheese chicken penne florentine( CL)





Last night I sat down with the latest issue of Cooking Light and this casserole caught my eye. Ironically when Robin asked me today if we could have pasta for dinner, I thought of this casserole. I actually had everything to make it so I didnt need to go to the store. I took a picture of the pan because I wanted Cyndi to see that my mushrooms defrosted perfectly. Two weeks ago, I bought 2lbs of shiitaki mushrooms for 1.99(reduced). I decided to freeze them and was pleasantly surprised that they didnt turn black as Cyndi's had. Maybe because these were shiitake and they arent that watery. I used low-carb penne for this too.

The recipe calls for Rotissiere chicken but I had some bone-in breasts that I just bought for 99 cents a lb( Meijer in MI). I roasted 4 of them( I'll make chicken salad with the other 2). The recipe calls for cottage cheese too. I just picked up a large container of MI brand cottage cheese and was bummed that I had to use it. When I make casseroles/lasagna's, I prefer to use a store brand cottage cheese. Consequently, I used about 1/2 cup less than the 2 cups called for.

I sauteed onion, peppers( I used orange peppers I had frozen), and spinach. That gets mixed in with the pureed cottage cheese, 1/2 cup milk, shreeded cheese's and a can of soup( groan). The recipe called for reduced fat cream of chicken, I used reduced fat cream of celery( thats what I had at home).

It all gets thrown in a casserole dish and topped with more cheese. It was quite watery when I came out of the oven, but I let it sit for about 10 min and it firmed up.

Verdict: I thought it was rather bland, I did add some pepper to the recipe, even though it didnt call for it. It definatly needs some more herbs and spices. Robin liked it( I knew she would, she is a casserole kinda girl). It was light though, I didnt feel heavy and gross after eating it. I really love that dreamfields pasta. Its a great thing for diabetics.

3 Comments:

Blogger The Cookbook Junkie said...

I've pretty much been using the Dreamfields exclusively the past few weeks. It's hard to go back to regular pasta and I don't care for whole wheat pasta as much. I really hope the price comes down. The lowest price I've found is $1.49 and the regular price is $2.29.

I took your suggestion and froze the extra red peppers and jalapenos but I haven't tried them yet. This week I need red peppers for something.

5:42 AM, March 03, 2006

 
Blogger Cate said...

It looks gorgeous, and perfect comfort food. As soon as I saw the cover of the new CL, I was hooked.

11:58 AM, March 04, 2006

 
Blogger Dawna said...

I often find that recipes for pasta casseroles are a little bland. I usually try to pep them up with things like Tabasco sauce and fresh herbs, if I have them. I'm getting very flinchy about canned soups in general, though, because so many of them have MSG in them. I still like the Campbell's tomato, though, which doesn't.

11:36 AM, March 05, 2006

 

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