I made a few modifications to this recipe even though it’s not something I usually do the first time around, but I enjoy taking recipes and making them my own. My fridge had a few things that needed to be used up, crimini mushrooms were one of them. I loved the mushrooms with the creamy richness of the pasta and goat cheese and the crunch of the panko topping. I was able to use more of my flavor-packed sun dried tomato pesto in place of the chopped sun dried tomatoes, which we spooned on top of our serving. If you don’t have homemade chicken stock, I recommend buying a good quality boxed stock. I also didn’t use uncooked chicken breasts in this, but added roasted chicken to the dish about half way into the baking time. Also, this recipe makes a lot of food so it would be great for company. Thanks for reading, enjoy!

• 1 lb orzo
• 3 cups roasted and shredded chicken
• 6oz log chevre, broken up and crumbled with two forks
• 2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
• Juice from half a lemon (~2 tsp), and the zest
• 4 cups chicken broth (*I used this stock)
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 pound cremini mushrooms
• 1 small shallot, diced
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• olive oil
• 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, divided
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground pepper
• 3/4 cup Parmesan, grated
• 3/4 cup Panko
• sun dried tomato pesto for topping