Chicken, Spinach, and Orzo casserole: Meal Planning Made Easy link-up

Leigh over at Hines-Sight Blog is throwing us all a huge bone right now. She's doing a blog link-up called "August Meal Planning Made Easy." Other bloggers are linking up to share their easy recipes, which I'm pretty sure we can all benefit from. I know I'm terrible about meal planning, which just adds stress to my life and dollars to my grocery bills. One of my big plans for fall is more and better meal planning!







Plus, if you haven't already checked out Leigh's blog, you're going to love it. She shares great tales of raising kids, travelling, cooking, and generally living life. Plus, she's a fellow Raleigh blogger.

One of my go-to recipes is a Chicken, Spinach, and Orzo casserole, from The All New Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook. It's easy, tasty, and will take care of at least 2 nights of dinner in my house. Plus, even though it's a casserole, it's pretty healthy. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but trust me, it's good.

Chicken, Orzo, and Spinach Casserole

4 (6-oz) skinned and boned chicken breasts
2/3 cup uncooked orzo
1 (8 oz) package sliced fresh mushrooms
Vegetable cooking spray
1 (10 oz) package frozen spinach, thawed and well drained
1 (10.5 oz) can low-fat cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup reduced fat mayo
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon pepper
3/4 cup reduced fat Monterey Jack cheese
1/4 cup Italian-seasoned bread crumbs

1. Boil chicken and enough water to cover in a large pot (Dutch oven) about 12 minutes, or until done. Remove chicken, reserving broth. Chop chicken and set it aside.
2. Cook pasta in the reserved broth according to package directions (omit salt).
3. Saute mushrooms until tender in a large nonstick skillet coated with cooking  spray. Remove from heat.
4.Stir in chicken, pasta, spinach, mushrooms, and next 4 ingredients. Spoon mixture into a 13x9 inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.Sprinkle with cheese and bread crumbs.
5. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Yield: 8 servings