Chicken Tetrazzini (and other stuff)

Wow, it's really been a while since I've posted.  It's not that I haven't wanted to write about anything, but since I went to Montreal I've gotten a new boss at work, and it's been, in a word, exhausting.  Don't get me wrong, the new boss is great, but he's also pretty much the exact opposite of my old boss and so it's taking a lot of getting used to.  My workload has also increased exponentially since we had a couple of higher-ups quit not too long before he started.  I did, however, get a temporary promotion to Interim Branch Manager (with a temporary pay raise!), which is great!  But there's no Interim-My-Old-Position, so I'm still doing all that work, too (or at least trying to).  Add to that the fact that it's the end of our fiscal year when things are extra crazy anyway, plus time for employee evaluations, which made me want to hide under my desk when I had to write up two of them (I now have to do eleven), and yeah, I'm stressed.  And stress makes me not eat and have trouble sleeping.  Which makes me depressed and adds to the stress.  Things will get straightened out eventually, though.  I just need to hang in there for a few more weeks until I get to go on vacation again (10 year college reunion!).  But you didn't come here to read about me being all "Waah waah, life is hard!", you came for a chicken recipe!  And here you go:

A while ago, I decided I really wanted chicken tetrazzini for dinner, but alas!  None of my cookbooks had a recipe!  After looking at a few recipes on the internet, I decided to try Martha Stewart's since I already had a lot of the ingredients.  I did change a couple things, though: 1. I still don't have any dry white wine, so I used extra chicken broth instead; and 2. My grocery store had lost power the morning I made this and I couldn't get any frozen peas, so they got left out, too.  Here are the ingredients for how I actually made this:

6 Tbsp butter; 1 lb. white mushrooms, sliced; 1/2 C flour; 3 C milk; 1 14.5 oz. can, plus 3/4 C chicken broth; 3 C grated Parmesan cheese; 1/2 tsp. thyme; 1 lb. angel hair pasta; 1 rotisserie chicken, skin removed and meat shredded; salt and pepper.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  In a large pan, melt 2 Tbsp butter over high heat and add the mushrooms, seasoned with some salt and pepper.  This will look like an awful lot of mushrooms:

Before

But you will cook them for about 10 minutes, stirring them around frequently, until they get kind of browned, and they'll lose a lot of volume:

After

Transfer the mushrooms to a bowl and set aside.  In the same pan, this time over medium heat, melt the rest of the butter and whisk in the flour.  Stirring constantly, add in the milk and chicken broth.  Bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat so it's simmering and add in two cups of the Parmesan cheese and season with some salt and pepper, stirring until it's all melted.

So cheesy!

Cook the pasta in a big pot so it's al dente, drain, and put it back in the pot.  Stir in the mushroom, chicken, and sauce until it's all well mixed.  Divide it up between two 2-quart baking pans and put the remaining one cup of Parmesan cheese on top.

Now, you can cook both of these.  Or, if you don't think you could possible eat that much chicken tetrazzini before you either get sick of it or it goes bad, cover one of the dishes with foil and put it in the freezer for up to three months.  For the one you're going to eat right away, bake it at 400 degrees for about thirty minutes, or until it's nicely browned.  (And for the frozen one, if it's going straight from the freezer, bake it covered with foil at 400 degrees for about 2 hours, then uncover and bake another 20 minutes until browned or, if you've thawed it in the fridge first, bake covered with foil at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, then uncover and bake another 20 minutes until browned.)

I thought this recipe turned out pretty well, if a little bland.  I think if I make it again, I'll definitely have to add some kind of vegetable.  Maybe not peas, maybe broccoli or something (I like broccoli much better than peas).  And maybe I'll substitute a more flavorful cheese for some of the Parmesan.  I don't know.  This warms up really well, though, so that helps my opinion of it quite a bit.