Mashed Potato Crusted Chicken

You have a dish of left over mashed potatoes from a previous supper and need to polish them off. That's what this dish is all about. It's cooking on a budget - using up what you have on hand. You have half an onion available. Great. A partial box of chicken broth as well, even better.
Now all you need are some mushrooms and a couple of large boneless skinless chicken breasts and you have a whole new meal to serve your family. The mushrooms I chose were on sale - white button mushrooms, use whatever mushroom you can get on sale.
There is really no measuring of ingredients in this dish; we're creating from scratch and going to the spice cabinet to see what spices will make the chicken taste good. After all, chicken is just bland until you spice it up!

• left over mashed potatoes - partially reheated
• 1/2 sweet onion - sliced
• chicken - boneless skinless (my two pack was 1.34#)
• 4 oz. pkg. white button mushrooms
• chicken broth
• granulated garlic
• onion powder
• paprika
• salt and black pepper
• butter
• olive oil

To begin the recipe, start out by butterflying the chicken breast as shown below.

Using the spices listed, liberally sprinkle each one of them on both sides of the chicken.

In a skillet or fry pan caramelize the onions in some butter on low heat, stirring until done. Be patient, the caramelizing process takes time. Then add in the button mushrooms, with some added butter and olive oil. Keep cooking until the mushrooms have a chance to release some of their natural juice and brown slightly.

When this process is complete add them to the casserole dish along with some chicken broth.

In the same skillet you browned the mushrooms and onion, add in some more butter and a slight drizzle of olive oil. Sear the room temperature chicken breast over medium to medium high heat for about 1-2 minutes per side. The chicken is actually about 3/4 cooked at this point.

While the chicken is searing reheat your left over mashed potatoes in the microwave for about 2-3 minutes. Remove and stir with a fork.

Next, arrange the chicken in an oven proof casserole dish. Take a little bit more chicken broth and add to the skillet, scrap up all the good bits and pour over the chicken.

Pipe the reheated mashed potatoes (or use a spoon or spatula) to coat the chicken. Melt some butter and drizzle all over the top of the potatoes.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Put the casserole dish in and TURN DOWN the heat to 350 degrees.

Bake until you get a nice golden brown on the potatoes, taking care that you don't over cook the chicken. I ended up having to drizzle some more butter on top, use my convection to help brown. Total cook time was about 20-25 minutes. The broth helped the chicken stay moist and tender.