Swedish Chicken

Helen, this one's for you.

This is my favorite go-to dish for a shower or other casual get together. I can't tell you how many times Mom and I have figured a meal around this main course. Other than the delectable flavor, I like it because the dried beef actually gives the dish a flash of red every now and then, with the rest of the dish being rather pink. It looks great with a simple green salad. Why the women of my family call it Swedish Chicken, I will never know. Even the flag doesn't have red or pink in it!

I guess it's akin to our name for Russian creme, but at least that red dish makes sense.

I have been known to add a can of artichoke hearts to give it a little flavor kick. Would have posted a photo of the last batch I made, but intead of grabbing sour cream at the Kroger, don't you know I grabbed cottage cheese! The flavor was still awesome, but the dish wasn't as, ah, visually appealing as I'd like it to be. Probably wouldn't have made you want to go home and put it on the table. But once you've made it the "right" way below, if you have some extra cottage or ricotta cheese lying around, yeah, you can substitute.

It takes THREE hours to cook this in the oven, but it reheats beautifully. So if you want it for a friday dinner, maybe cook it when you're home Thursday night so you won't have to take off work Friday afternoon to put the chicken in the oven.

Ingredients:
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
4 strips bacon
1 jar Armor sliced dried beef
½ pint sour cream
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 small can sliced mushrooms
¼ cup white wine (optional)
2 cups cooked rice

1. Preheat oven to 275°.
2. Wrap each uncooked chicken breast with a strip of uncooked bacon.
3. Line bottom of an 8-inch square pan with dried beef.
4. Place wrapped Chicken breasts in the pan on top of the beef.
5. Pour mixture of sour cream, mushrooms, wine, and mushroom soup over chicken and bake uncovered at 275° for three hours.
6. Serves 4 with rice.

Photo courtesy of Top News.