Mission Possible: November

Coming up with November's Mission Possible menu was a bit of a challenge. With the onset of such frigid weather, I knew I wanted something warming and savory-- winter comfort food. However, we had scheduled our November party a few days after Thanksgiving and I didn't want to have an overwhelmingly heavy meal so close to turkey day. I have yet to sell KC on the concept of stews (it'll happen someday; I'm a Nebraskan, after all), so I decided on a hearty pasta dish. Traditionally, I'm mostly a spaghetti or lasagna girl, which is why the Pioneer Woman's creamy Chicken With Olives dish sounded so appealing.

Lots of onion and green pepper!


The chicken breasts are first browned in a skillet with butter and olive oil




Next, the onion and green pepper are cooked in the remaining butter/oil with minced garlic


Delicious tomatoes and white wine join the fray


I moved everything to an oven-safe casserole dish, and added the browned chicken and some mushrooms (my own recipe tweak)


Out of the oven and smelling like heaven!


After baking everything for roughly 45 minutes, the olives are introduced


And the best part of all: drizzling decadent heavy cream and shaking the pan


Is your mouth watering yet?


I paired the succulent pasta with lemon butter steamed broccoli


Our November dinner guests, Heather and Abby

With the exception of my mushroom addition, there's not one thing I would change about this incredible dish. The twice-baked chicken was so moist and really soaked up the flavorful sauce. I served it over whole wheat linguine, but really, it would be awesome over any pasta. Definitely a keeper that I'll make again soon! ;)

Oh my goodness, we're down to our last month of the Mission Possible project! I can't believe how fast it's gone... Never fear, I plan on going out with a bang and I'll be taking a pair of crustaceans with me-- but more on that later!