Garlic and Herb Chicken - Quick & Easy

If you haven't noticed, I'm a bit top heavy on the chicken recipes. This house consumes more chicken than all the other meat groups combined.....by far. I'm not a huge pork fan and beef can be expensive and well...fish is out of the question. Sooo...that leaves poultry. Its a damn good thing that its so flexible or I'd be in trouble.

This meal is really tasty but a little too much "Sandra Lee'ish" for my liking. I don't usually use packaged products in my meals but once in a while shit happens. It was a long day. I was tired. I had the ingredients and well...it just had to be. It's always popular with the fam but the fact that it contains MSG really bothers me. So, I guess you can just call this meal a guilty pleasure.

Anyways...its a simple, quick (if you use chopped up chicken) dinner and heres how it works:

5 skinless chicken thighs (I used boneless skinless chicken thighs. I've used a couple of chicken breast instead too. Oh...and sometimes I chop the chicken up into bite sized pieces. Do what you want...it's all good)

2 - 3 tablespoons olive oil

Salt

Pepper

2 garlic cloves, crushed

6 oz fresh mushrooms, sliced (the ones in the picture are crimini mushrooms. Regular white mushrooms are completely fine)

2 tablespoons butter

1 packet of Knorr Garlic & Herb Sauce Mix

1 1/2 cups milk

But before we get started, lets treat the cook to something special :)

The Wine of the Month at BakeSpace.com this month is Merlot. I really enjoy Merlot and this month I'm trying several brands that I've never tried before. This one is no exception. The reason I chose it is due to the name... 3 Blind Moose with a yellow cork even! How could I not give it a shot? I'll be posting a review sometime by the end of the month in the June Wine - Merlot section of the Wine Club at BakeSpace.com. If you'd like, feel free to join us. We love new peeps and have such a good time.

Ok, now that the wine is poured and the ingredients all set, the cook is happy and ready to get rolling.

First off, heat the olive oil in a skillet, season the chicken with salt and pepper. Cook over medium / high heat until the chicken is brown on both sides. Remove from skillet. (pictures of browned meat not included....they all look the same, right?)

Now, toss the butter in the skillet; melt. Add mushrooms and garlic:

oh yum...do you know how good thats going to smell in a few seconds? Saute until tender:

Oh ya.....its smells awesome! I think you could saute pebbles with garlic and they'd smell awesome.

Now....combine the seasoning packet with the milk in a bowl. Stir until blended (you don't want clumps of seasoning in the bottom of the bowl). Add sauce mixture to the pan with the mushrooms; stir and scrape the bottom of the pan to get all the crunchies up (thats where all the flavor is!). Return the chicken back to the pan:

Reduce the heat to simmer, cover and cook until the chicken is done, turning once. If the chicken is whole it will take about 30 - 45 minutes. If you've cut the chicken into pieces then it will only be a few minutes.

Serve over your favorite pasta and enjoy. Oh...and I think next time I might add some fresh chopped Italian parsley. The scent from the sprig I put in the photo was wonderful. It just added that extra fresh pizzaz.