Provincial Chicken

This one got mixed reviews.  Alyssa liked it, but skipped the chicken.  Brayden was polite and ate all the noodles, but was getting as much of the sauce off as he could and he also skipped the chicken.  Gabe choked down seven bites (that's how many bites they have to try before they can decide if they like it or not), but just didn't like it.  Billy was another mediocre review.  He ate it and said it wasn't bad, but smiled and hesitantly told me that I can keep it OFF of our dinner menu in the future. 

Day three was interesting for me.  I actually *gasp* used some cooking skills of my own rather than faithfully following the cookbook.  And I didn't ruin it nor burn the house down.  I'm making progress.  The changes were minimal though. I didn't do this as a crockpot recipe as suggested for two reasons: 1 - I wanted this for lunch and didn't get up early enough to let it simmer for 6 to 8 hours and 2 - pulling the chicken out of that soupy mixture to cut it up into small pieces sounded SUPER messy.  I'm not a fan of messy.  So I couldn't come up with any logical reason why I couldn't just pan sear the chicken, cut it up, then make the sauce on the stove top same as directed.  It worked!  It's just that the chicken didn't get to marinate in the sauce like it would have if I did it in the crockpot.  The other change was that I didn't have bowtie pasta.  I used ziti instead.  Shoot me.  It was still equally as delicious.  

I also want to add that the "servings" seemed a little off to me.  We're a family of 5 and we all had a full serving and there are enough leftovers that we could probably all have another serving.  I don't know what I'm going to do with all these leftovers. 




Provincial Chicken - Crockpot recipe

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 15-oz cans diced tomatoes
2 zucchini, diced
10-3/4 oz can of cream of chicken soup


2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon dried, minced onion
2 tablespoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
cooked bowtie pasta

In a slow cooker, combine chicken, tomatoes, zucchini, soup, vinegar, onion and herbs.  Cover and cook on low setting for 6 to 8 hours.  Remove chicken, cut into bite-size pieces and return to slow cooker.  Stir in cheese and sour cream; cover and cook for an additional 15 minutes.  To serve, spoon over cooked pasta. 

Serves 6.

Recipe from "101 Slow-cooker recipes" by Gooseberry Patch Cookbooks