new chicken recipe

I've been asked to be on the committee to plan and help prepare dinner for 275 women on January 30. Last week we chose the recipe and I've made 4 batches of it, trying to tweek it to make it better. Tonights double batch was to test cooking time so I could give an accurate time frame for baking it in the oven instead of the crock pot. Very simple recipe but I'll put my enhancements in parenthesis. We may or may not be doing all of them due to costs.

Cream chicken

6 chicken (the white pieces*)

12 oz. cream cheese

2 cans cream of chicken soup

1 small can green chilies (not the hot kind)

(1 bunch of green onions, sliced thinly)

(1 red bell pepper, diced)

(celery, diced)

1 package of Italian dressing mix

(I found a recipe and adapted it to make our own mixture of spices...recipe follows)

(1 cup sour cream)

(can of s)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray roasting pan with nonstick something. Lay chicken on bottom of roasting pan. In large bowl soften cream cheese in microwave, stir well, then add soups and chilies and seasoning. Stir until well blended. Heat entire mixture in microwave until hot; pour over chicken, cover and bake 1 hour. Meat thermometer should read 160-165;( It is done at 165 but will continue to cook for awhile.

Take the meat out of the sauce and lay on cookie sheet and let cool enough to handle. While cooling, stir in 1 cup of sour cream. Shred chicken with fork or fingers, then put back in sauce.

Seasoning mix is: 1 teaspoon onion powder, 1 Tablespoon parsley, 1/2 teaspoon oregano, 1/4 teaspoon marjoram, 1/2 teaspoon celery salt, 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, 4 Tablespoons Parmesan cheese. I think the meat may be tastier if the onion powder and garlic powder were sprinkled directly onto the meat...but I haven't tested that.

serve on rice.

I've made it with less cream cheese and it is fine. This will serve about 15 people if the chicken pieces are big. I served it the first time without shredding the chicken and it actually went over better with the boys than the shredded chicken did.

We have had this too many times last week so I froze what I made tonight after dividing it and putting sour cream in half and plain yogurt in the other half and made everyone choose their favorite...guess which one was preferred?

The sour cream one.

Guess what I have added 'breast' to this recipe 7 times and blogger always eliminates it. Why? We are cooking the white meat part of the chicken just in case the above word is again eliminated.