Table Talk - Creamy Chicken & Spinach Casserole

 This time for our dinner group we did a pasta dish.  It turned out really creamy even though it only uses 1% milk. 

I sliced up all the chicken first.  I didn't have an onion or garlic so I decided to use dried onions and garlic powder.  It seemed to work out just fine. 



 

I browned the chicken first.  I didn't worry about cooking it all the way through, since the recipe just says to brown it. 

I used 3/4 cup of dried onion.  I really like onion so this was fine for me, but it was really too much. If I make it again I would only do a half a cup or maybe even just a 1/3... 

After the chicken was brown I dumped the onions in with some more oil. 

After they had softened a bit I added the garlic powder.  The bottle told me how much to add for an equivalent for a clove.  Next I added the 2 tablespoons of flour.  Finally I added the four cups of 1% milk and a bay leaf.

I let it simmer and thicken.

I added the chicken back in at this point.  I cooked it for about a minute to finish cooking it through. 

I added the spinach.  I used a dish towel to "wring" all the moisture out of it. 

I added parmesan and the noodles which I had cooked while the white sauce simmered. 

Loaded the whole think into a 8x8" pan. 

I topped it mozzeralla cheese and baked it for 15 minutes.  All done!

The recipe says it only make 4 servings.  Four servings!!  The square below is a sixth of the recipe, much more my size. 

I worked up the calories for six servings. 

I really like this.  My chicken ended up being dry even though I thought I'd barely cooked it.  I don't know if it was over cooked or if it was just dry chicken...  If you like pasta, you'll like this recipe. 

Check out Jen's blog for the full recipe.