Comfort Food with a Kick: Chicken Florentine Casserole

With it's cold weather and dreary days, October seems to be the month for comfort food. I've been wanting to try something a little different with chicken breast and this florentine casserole hit the nail on the head for me! It's a creamy, flavourful dish that is all in all WAY too filling to eat every night. 
I'd like to take a minute to tell you how I find most of the recipes I try. Because I am only new to living on my own and cooking for two, I don't actually have any cook books so I do what most modern people do when trying to learn something new: I hit the internet! 
Quite some time ago I came across the website: www.allrecipes.com, originally I used it to find recipes for cookies, cupcakes, any kind of baking really... nothing practical that one would make on an everyday basis. Now I rely on it most nights to help me whip up dinner! The great thing about this website is that you can search for specific recipes or by the ingredients you want and don't want - very useful when you have a picky eater in the house! When searching for a specific recipe, I find the best way to utilize this website is to pick based on high ratings and number of ratings. Also, READ the comments, often you'll find several people making the same suggestions to make the dish even better!

Chicken Florentine Casserole*

4 Chicken breast halves                1/4 cup butter
3 teaspoons minced garlic            1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 can cream of mushroom soup   1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
1/2 cup half-and-half                       1/2 cup grated parmesan
1 1/2 cups frozen spinach              1/4 cup mushrooms, sliced
2/3 cup bacon bits                          1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
In a medium frying pan, saute spinach and mushrooms with 1 tablespoon butter

Melt the rest of the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stirring constantly, mix in the garlic, lemon juice, cream of mushroom soup, Italian seasoning, half-and-half, and parmesan cheese. 

Arrange the spinach and mushrooms over the bottom of a 9x9 inch baking dish. 

Cover with half of the sauce mixture.

Arrange chicken breasts on top of the spinach and mushrooms, and cover with the remaining sauce mixture. 

Sprinkle with bacon bits.

Bake for 45 minutes, then sprinkle with mozzarella and bake for another 10 minutes

* this recipe has been altered from the original at http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chicken-florentine-casserole/detail.aspx

 Hubby Approval Rating      4.5/5

Why? "It was good but there was too much spinach"

Based on Jason's review I'll probably use half of the spinach next time and throw in some diced artichoke heart!

Chicken and Bacon Bits,
Dani