Bastille Day

In the past few years, I have discovered that I like to celebrate other nations' holidays. Today, July 14, is Bastille Day. It's all about the French Revolution, and while I'm not French, I enjoy pretending to be Gallic for a day.

In addition, Bastille Day stirs up some of my favorite travel memories. To celebrate our third anniversary, Aaron and I decided to make our first trip to Europe. We spent a week in London and another five days in Paris. It was one of the best trips of my life, and it has furthered my resolve to return to the beautiful nation. I also had a wonderful time exploring many of the Paris' wonderful restaurants and culinary treasures. For instance, we had the most delectable Nutella crepes near the Eiffel Tower. And one on our last night of the trip, we had an amazing dinner at a restaurant called Leo le Lion. Plus there was the fresh pastries, the chocolates, the ice cream from Berthillon. I'm ready to go back now!

Unfortunately, real life is interfering with my daydreaming. Instead, I'll start a load of laundry before heading to work tonight. A French dinner, though, is within my reach. I originally had dreams of all these wonderful meals -- coq au vin, cassoulet, duck a l'orange -- but had almost none of the ingredients. So, to save my family a few (or more) dollars and make cooking easy on my husband, I went searching for a fast, easy recipe.

Bull's-eye.

One of my favorite Web sites, http://www.recipesource.com/, had more than 100 French recipes to choose from. The one I selected, Chicken Francaise, seemed simple. I had most of the ingredients in my freezer or pantry; Aaron only had to pick up two of them at the supermarket. Excellent! How French it is, well, I don't know. But it is easy. And delicious.

Tres bien!

This recipe is from www.recipesource.com.

Chicken Francaise

6 medium chicken breasts
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 can (10 1/2 oz.) cream of mushroom soup

3 oz. mushrooms, sliced
Paprika
1 cup sour cream

Place chicken breasts, skin side up, in baking pan; sprinkle with salt. Blend wine into soup; add mushrooms and pour over chicken.

Bake at 350 degrees for 60 to 75 minutes. Remove chicken to platter; sprinkle with paprika. Pour sauce into saucepan; mix in sour cream and heat gently until hot. Do not boil, or sauce will separate. Serve over chicken and sauce over hot cooked rice.

Cook's notes: We used low-fat soup mix and sour cream; both worked beautifully. We also used boneless, skinless chicken breasts and reduced the cooking time by 15 to 20 minutes. You could skip sprinkling the chicken with salt; the wine and soup mixture are plenty salty without it.