Chicken and rice casserole with squash

Another Easter is over and once again the Easter bunny was very generous with his (or her) sweet gifts. I think my kids must have consumed 5 lbs of bad chocolate and other candy's made from ingredients a human should never ingest. It just makes me cringe! Well, a new week is ahead and I am looking forward to celebrating my 17th wedding anniversary to my wonderful Robert on April 29. Oh, isn't there something else happening that day? A royal wedding or something? Notice the sarcasm in my ignorance? I actually think it is kind of fun that we will from now on share our anniversary with Prince William and Kate. I will have to get up at 4 in the morning to see it all live, so I haven't quite committed to that yet. I am sure there will be plenty of replays, though live is always best. I am also thinking about new dinners to make for my family, but today I want to share a recipe that I made at the end of last week; Chicken and Rice casserole with squash.

 A casserole like this is the perfect weeknight family meal, and this one is both healthy and very affordable too. I love Zucchini in particular, and I am planning on growing my own this summer. My kids are pretty good about eating vegetables when they are mixed in with other things, and they love chicken and rice, so I thought it was a great combination. The original recipe was featured in Cooking light Magazine last summer, but I have altered it quite a bit. Instead of cooking a fresh chicken breast I used already cooked rotissery chicken. This saves a lot of time. It shaves off more than 25 minutes from the original prep time. Super bonus points! The rest of the recipe is pretty much intact. Everyone really enjoyed it. It is so rewarding when I hear.: "Yum! This is really good mom!". You can't beat that!

Chicken and Rice casserole

Cooking spray

1 cup chopped onion

1 (14- ounce) can fat free, less-sodium

chicken broth

1 (8-ounce) cooked chicken breast half, skinned*

1 tablespoon butter

1 (8- ounce) zucchini, halved

lenghtwise and thinly sliced

1 (8-ounze) yellow squash, halved

lengtwise and thinly sliced

2 cups cooked long-grain white rice

1 taspoon minced fresh rodemary

1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups 2% reduced-fat milk

1/2 cup (2 ounces) grated Parmesan cheese, divided

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat a medium sauce pan over medium-high heat. Lightly coat pan with cooking spray. Add onion to pan; saute 5 minutes stirring occasionally. Add broth to pan. Bring to a boil, cook uncovered, until reduced to about 1 cup (about 10 minutes).

Meanwhile, shred chicken breast  and place in a large bowl.

Add reduced broth mixture to chicken. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add squash and Zucchini, saute 5 minutes or until lightly browned, stirring frequently. Add squash mixture , cooked rice and rosemary to the chicken mixture and toss gently to combine.

Place flour in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Gradually add milk, stirring until smooth; bring to a boil. Cook 1 minute or until thick, stirring constantly with a whisk. Remove from heat; let stand 30 seconds. Add 1/4 cup cheese, stir with a whisk until smooth. Add pepper, milk mixture and salt to chicken mixture, stir to combine. Spoon chicken mixture into a broiler-safe 8-inch ceramic baking dish coateddwith cooking spray. Sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup cheese over the top and bake at 35 degrees for 20 minutes or until thourougly heated. Remove casserole from oven.

Preheat broiler. Broil casserole 5 minutes or until golden.

* I ended up using all the breast meat from a whole rotissery chicken

Adapted recipe from Cooking light Magazine, August 2010