Swiss Family....Chicken

If cooking were a genetic trait, you could say that I got hit with the Cooking Gene from both sides.  My mom loves to cook and play with new recipes, new flavors.  My dad loves to bake.  Bread (in the breadmaker) and pies especially.  Put the two of them together and you get a girl like me: totally, completely, utterly obsessed with food.  Thanks Mom and Dad! ;)

Now that I have a home of my own and I'm possibly passing that gene on to my own son (and his soon-to-be brother), I find I'm getting nostalgic about recipes.  Not only do I need to make sure my 3-year-old eats a balanced meal, but I'm also drawn to the comfort foods I grew up with.  One of our favorites, especially my brother's, was Swiss Chicken.

Swiss Chicken wasn't always called Swiss Chicken.  Even now that name sounds weird to me...like I'm forcing something unnatural on a favored dish.  We always called it Baked Chicken.  Wow, can a name be any more generic?  But after my mom submitted the recipe for a family cookbook, she re-christened it Swiss Chicken and that's how I try to refer to it now (still feels weird though).

Swiss Chicken is easy with a capital E.  All you really need are five little ingredients.  Not kidding, just five: chicken, cream of chicken soup, some kind of liquid, Swiss cheese (duh), and croutons.  At this point though you're either bored with my list or intrigued.  If you're bored, stick with me a little longer please!  You can have oh-so-much fun with such a short list of flavors. 

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/3 cup liquid (water, chicken broth, or my personal favorite, WINE. I've tried all three liquids and wine packs the most flavor punch in my opinion)
4 slices Swiss cheese (or if you can find shredded go with that instead. I think shredded melts better and creates a more well-rounded cheese sauce.  If you go shredded, you'll want about 4 oz)
1/2 box croutons, crushed**

1. Preheat oven to 325.

2. Put chicken breasts in a shallow baking dish and cover with cheese.  Mix together soup and liquid.  Pour on top of the cheesed chicken.

 

Behold the power of cheeeeeeeeeeese

3.  Sprinkle crushed croutons on top of soup mixture.

4. Cover dish and bake for 1 1/2 hours.  I love to eat this with rice and broccoli.  This cheese sauce on top of rice and broccoli is absolute Comfort Heaven!

Total hand's on time: about 10 minutes. Seriously. 


**Oh croutons....now here's where you can have some fun!  For years I've always picked up the box in the salad dressing aisle (whatever's on sale), beat out my frustrations on the poor bag and then dumped half on the chicken.  But a few months ago I had an epiphany.  My husband likes bread.  I like to make bread, but always end up with leftovers that go stale or moldy and nobody wants that.  Why not make my own croutons when I need them??  Genius!!

So here's what I did... I took the leftover half loaf of Rosemary Bread that I'd made last weekend and cubed it up.  Toss the cubes in a bowl with some extra-virgin olive oil, a little salt and pepper. 

Spread the cubes out on a baking sheet and bake at 350 for...um, well, a while I guess.  I admit I didn't time it exactly.  When I could smell the cubes, I kept an eye on them until they reached a level of brown-ness I liked.

Keep them in an airtight container, or take a rolling pin to them and use on top of Swiss Chicken or whatever else your heart desires. :)