Basic Flavors for Quick Dinners

There are a few items nearly always present in my pantry or refrigerator that really help to get a quick dinner on the table, such as onions, mushrooms, chicken broth, dry sherry or white wine, and a fresh herb of some sort. Tonight I also had some heavy cream and leftover polenta (mamaliga in my husband's native language, a star of Romanian dinners), so this one-pot skillet dish is what showed up on the table.

May I digress a moment? After I discovered the rounds of polenta they sell in the grocery store, and then affirmed how well it goes with nearly anything when I tasted my mother-in-law's mamaliga, I decide to learn how to make it and use it quite a bit in place of pasta or rice.

Back to the dinner recipe:

Chicken with Mushroom Sherry Cream Sauce
1 Tbsp butter or olive oil
Half an onion, chopped
10 baby portobello or crimini mushrooms, chopped
1 cube frozen garlic from Trader Joe's or 1 clove of garlic, minced
precooked chicken (I used the frozen grilled strips from Costco), about 2 chicken breasts
1 Tbsp dry sherry
1 cup chicken broth
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
3 sprigs fresh thyme (strip the sprigs as you add them to the skillet)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup heavy cream

Melt butter in a skillet on medium heat. Add the onion and mushroom pieces and saute for about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and chicken and continue to saute for about 2 minutes. Splash in the dry sherry and let the mixture boil for a minute, then add the chicken broth. Turn the heat down to low and add the remaining ingredients. Simmer for about 5 minutes.

Serve over polenta and top with your favorite cheese (Beecher's Flagship, Parmesan, Feta, or whatever suits your fancy). I served this with green beans tonight. The above recipe is a guess at how much of each ingredient I used and makes about 3-4 servings.