Chicken Florentine

I was inspired to try a recipe like this because of those frozen Bertolli meals Ms. Huis was talking about. The Chicken Florentine one is good- but has lots of sodium and I kept thinking "it can't be too hard to make this!" And it's not. Here is the basic recipe (adapted from one I found on allrecipes.com) - it's very forgiving though and you can really make it up as you go along. See notes at the bottom.

Chicken Florentine Casserole

Ingredients:

4 skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces
2-3 slices of bacon, chopped into bits
1-2 Tbs butter (or olive oil, or blend)
1/4 C. white wine
3 cloves minced garlic
1 Tbs Italian Seasoning (or your preferred mix of basil, marjoram, oregano, rosemary & thyme)
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1/2 C. half-and-half (0r milk)
1/2 C. grated Parmesan cheese
2 C. shredded Mozzarella cheese
4 to 6 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 to 2 bags of fresh baby spinach

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
1. Melt 1 Tbs butter (or oil) in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Lightly saute spinach and mushrooms. Place in the bottom of a 9x13 casserole dish.
2. In the sauce pan, cook 3 slices of bacon (you can skip this step if you microwave, but the bacon adds some flavor to the chicken) until done. Remove bacon, chop to bits and set aside.
3. Add chicken to the pan along with the garlic, saute until no longer pink. Add white wine to deglaze the pan. Stirring constantly, mix in the cream of mushroom soup, Italian seasoning, half-and-half, and Parmesan cheese.
4. Spoon the chicken and sauce mixture over the arranged spinach in the casserole dish. Sprinkle with bacon bits, and top with mozzarella cheese.
5. Bake 20 to 25 minutes at 400 degrees, until bubbly and lightly browned. Serve as is, or over rice, farfalle pasta or egg noodles.

Notes:

• The original recipe called for canned spinach (yech!) but it's much better with fresh. I've also used frozen, just be sure to drain well.
  
• Skim or 1% milk is fine in place of the half and half.
• The amounts are very much just suggested. If you really like mushrooms, use more. Don't like them, leave them out.
  
• The original recipe also called for 1 Tbs of lemon juice in the sauce, but it seemed useless to me. *shrug*
  
• You could also add breadcrumbs or something on top if you are so inclined.
  
• I've also made this with the pasta baked in. Add 2 cups of cooked bowtie noodles on top of the spinach layer- cover with the chicken sauce and continue as above. I haven't tried baking the rice yet, but I bet you could do that too- maybe just add a little more milk to the sauce so it has some moisture.
  
• I haven't tried it yet, (the next time I make it, I am making 2) but I bet this will freeze well.