Greek Chicken Casserole

I'm not much of a casserole girl.  I get images of my mom's version of the dish with cream of mushroom soup and some rice, which was very popular in the 70's.  I remember a friend of mine, who was newly married and feeling quite grown-up, making me dinner in her new apartment.  I was still living at home and was very impressed with my young friend's homemaking attempts.  Until I ate the dish, which was her attempt at recreating that famous dish.  Oh my.  Let's just say that I didn't feel well the rest of the night and she never made us dinner again.

This dish isn't really a traditional casserole, but has the same ease and one-pot wonderfulness.  You can go from oven to table, especially if you have a pretty Dutch oven or nice casserole dish.

The flavors were good and Abe really enjoyed it.  Jimi, much to be expected, liked everything except the tomatoes, and spent a good part of the meal making an impressive chopped tomatoes pile on his plate.  That boy, I can't sneak tomatoes into his diet to save my life.

I didn't have anchovy paste, so I used chopped olives instead.  The original recipe called for 1/4 cup of water added, but I found the recipe to have a lot of liquid at the end and didn't seem necessary.  Add it if you want, but if you don't, make sure you add the juice from the tomatoes
I got this recipe from Cookinglight.com.

Enjoy!

Greek Chicken Casserole
Serves 4 (serving size: 2 thighs and 2 cups potato mixture)

1  tablespoon  olive oil
2  cups  chopped onion (about 1 large)
2  tablespoons  dried thyme
1  to 2 teaspoons black pepper
10  garlic cloves, minced
6  cups  (1/2-inch) cubed red potato (about 2 pounds)
2  cups  (1-inch) cut green beans (about 1/2 pound)
2  tablespoons  anchovy paste or finely chopped olives
2  (14.5-ounce) cans no-salt-added diced tomatoes, undrained
1/4 cup water (optional)
8  skinned, boned chicken thighs (about 1 pound)
1/2  cup  (2 ounces) crumbled feta cheese

Preheat oven to 375°.

Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion, and sauté for 3 minutes. Add the thyme, pepper, and garlic; sauté 1 minute. Increase heat to medium-high. Add potato; sauté 8 minutes or until potato begins to brown. Stir in green beans, anchovy paste, tomatoes and water, if using. Remove mixture from heat. Nestle chicken thighs into potato mixture. Top with feta cheese. Cover and bake at 375° for 45 minutes.

Calories:  488 (23% from fat)
Fat:  12.6g (sat 4.2g,mono 4.9g,poly 2.1g)