'Add This One to the Rotation': Lemon Chicken with Mushroom Sauce

I'm nearly done traveling for the summer - just one more trip this weekend through the early part of next week - so I'm finally getting a chance to get back to cooking.

You all know I can't create my own recipes. I'm just on a mission to learn how to cook, so I use everyone else's. And with the multitude of recipes on the Interwebs these days, there's plenty of opportunity to do so. I was in the mood for chicken tonight, but tired of barbecued chicken.


I found Lemon Chicken with Mushroom Sauce on allrecipes.com. However, I did not follow the baked recipe. If you look in the comments section of the recipe - a great place I'm learning to look for recommended alterations to recipes - you'll find a comment recommending you use the chicken seasoning blend found here to spice the original recipe up a bit. I had every spice but the cayenne pepper, but it seems to me that you don't really need that unless you want it to have extra kick. I typically avoid extra kick when I'm cooking.

Readers in the comments section also recommended cooking the chicken after seasoning in a skillet, rather than baking. So this is what I did. I was afraid it would be dry, as my chicken usually is when cooked on the stove, but surprisingly the chicken stayed quite moist. I squeezed fresh lemon onto the chicken from time to time (in keeping with the Lemon Chicken name), which may have helped. I kept a lid on it after browning both sides and cooked it at medium to low heat.

I followed the directions for the sauce from the original recipe, using 1/4 cup butter and mushrooms, but I added garlic powder (so much easier than fresh garlic...) and salt and pepper to the mix for flavor. After the mushrooms cooked down, I added most of the chicken broth that was recommended, and a bit of flour for thickening. I squeezed lemon juice into the sauce occasionally, and added fresh parsley at the end. I don't have a lot of experience making sauces, but I feel like I made some progress with this one (despite accidentally putting some of the Pasta Side mix in the sauce ... oops!).

Though this picture is not the greatest, the chicken was good. Both my husband and I loved it. My husband even said we needed to add this recipe to the rotation. I'm good with that.