Crock Pot Marsala Chicken

My place smells yummy this afternoon, as chicken with Marsala wine, mushrooms, and onions cooks in the crock pot.  Today's version is a little different from how I would ordinarily do this, but the changes were made so I didn't have to buy anything else in order to make it and to stretch the quantity just a little.  This recipe does use processed food in the canned soup and uses butter, but it's one of the things I'm willing to do occasionally just because it's so good, cheap, and, yes, because I don't do it often.

Ingredients:  4 boneless skinless chicken breasts, salt* and pepper* to taste, half a stick butter, 1/2 lb mushrooms, 1 large onion*, 2 cans cream of mushroom soup*, Marsala wine or cooking wine*.

* Denotes an ingredient I had on hand at the beginning of the month and did not have to purchase.

What I did:  Seasoned the chicken breasts with salt and pepper and then browned them in the butter on the stove in a cast iron skillet. While they browned, I combined the soup and wine in the crock pot.  After the chicken was brown, I put it into the crock pot with the soup/wine mixture and browned the sliced mushrooms and onion in the pan juices.  I pushed the chicken breasts down into mushroom soup mix good and then dumped the pan of mushrooms and onions on top, covered, and am letting it cook on high until the chicken is falling apart tender.

Ordinarily, I don't add the onion.  I did today to stretch the recipe because onions are cheap and full of good nutrition as well.  The flavor won't hurt either! 

I calculated the cost of this dish, based on the sale prices I paid for the chicken, butter, and mushrooms.  Even factoring in the cost of the two cans of soup and the onion I used, I think this can still be made, including the brown rice I'll eat it with, for less than $1.50 a serving.  Pretty good eating for the price!

That price wouldn't, however, include the cooking wine I used here.  You can't buy it with food stamps anyway and this dish is actually really quite good without it.