FLORENTINE CHICKEN ALFREDO
4 boneless chicken breasts
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons butter
8 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 ounce fresh spinach, cut into thin strips *
Alfredo Sauce, see recipe below
Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Grill on an outdoor or indoor grill; keep warm while making the rest of the recipe.
Meanwhile, sauté the mushrooms in the 2 tablespoons of butter until tender and set aside. Make the Alfredo sauce. Add the cooked mushrooms and spinach to the sauce and heat through over very low heat just until the spinach has wilted. Gradually whisk in a little water if the sauce is too thick. Serve the sauce over the chicken.
Makes 4 servings
Do not freeze/Does not reheat well (see my update below)
* You'll need about 1 2/3 cups "confetti" sized strips (chiffonade).
MATTWP10'S MOST AMAZING ALFREDO SAUCE
4 tablespoons butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 cup heavy cream
3 ounces parmesan cheese, grated or shredded
2 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded (Matt used 3-4 ounces)
Water, if needed (see my comments below)
In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Add the garlic, pepper and cream and simmer about 2 minutes minutes. Gradually whisk in the parmesan cheese. Simmer another 10 minutes until the sauce has thickened and the cheese has completely melted. Very gradually whisk in the mozzarella cheese, whisking constantly.
Per Serving: 646 Calories; 51g Fat; 43g Protein; 5g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 4g Net Carbs
I made a few changes to Matt's Alredo sauce recipe. He said to simmer the garlic and butter for 5 minutes but I knew that the butter would get too brown. So, I added the pepper and cream as soon as the butter had melted. His next step was to simmer the cream for another 8 minutes but this reduced the liquid too much. I've adjusted the simmering time to just 2 minutes which should be enough time to infuse the cream with the garlic but won't reduce the liquid much. You will want to simmer the parmesan cheese the length of time that he suggested so that it will have a chance to fully melt. Otherwise it can be grainy. Even though I only used 2 ounces of mozzarella cheese, instead of the 3-4 ounces Matt called for, I ended up with what looked like a giant wad of chewing gum and had to thin the sauce down with 1/4-1/2 cup water to make it useable. You might not need to add any water if you don't let the cream reduce during the first step. In the end, after all the tweaking, this was delicious and really pretty simple to make. Click the photo to see a close-up.
UPDATE: I moved the note about adding water to thin down the sauce to the main recipe instead of having it with the sauce recipe. When you add in the cooked mushrooms and the spinach, they will probably add a little liquid which will help to thin down the sauce. Wait to add the water until after you see if adding the vegetables makes enough of a difference.
UPDATE: The next day I reheated a piece of the chicken in the microwave and the sauce broke badly and became oily. It didn't look pretty but it was still just as delicious.