Chicken Scampi

I bought the most beautiful head of garlic at the farmer's market on Saturday.  The cloves are the biggest I've ever seen and it is fresh as can be.  On Sunday I made my "famous" lasagna.  (Didn't take a very good picture of it and forgot to take a picture of just one serving.)  I used fresh mozzarella, whole grain pasta and lots of veggies-also from the market.  But this was especially good because of all the garlic I put in it. 

So last night as I saw the garlic sitting on the counter, I wanted to make something for dinner again using the garlic.  I knew that shrimp scampi was a popular garlicky dish, but I don't like shrimp, so I wondered if there was such thing as chicken scampi and found this recipe on a website called Mom's Who Think.  It calls for a can of cream of chicken soup, which I didn't have, so I decided to make my own.  Other than that I followed the recipe.  For the "soup" I made a roux with about one tablespoon of butter and 1-2 tablespoons of flour in a pan.  I whisked that together until it formed a paste.  I then slowly added 2 cups of chicken stock (I made with boullion cubes) and whisked that as it thickened.  After that, I slowly added 1 cup of skim milk and whisked that as it simmered until it thickened.

I cooked three butterflied-in-half chicken breasts in a skillet, then set them on a plate while I sauteed some sliced mushrooms and red, yellow and green peppers.  At this point I sauteed the garlic, then added the lemon juice.  The recipe calls for some water, but I left this out since my cream of chicken soup was liquid enough.  After the peppers and mushrooms sauteed, I added the "soup" to the skillet and it simmered briefly.  I returned the chicken to the skillet and let all of it simmer for five minutes more.  Just for kicks, I added about one tablespoon of capers to the sauce.  I also added salt and pepper to taste. 

This was served with some whole wheat pasta.  It was perfect in the amount of garlic to me.  Kevin likes things extra spicy and flavorful, so he would have preferred more garlic.  I liked this and would totally make it again!  See, I do more than just bake.