bella braised chicken

I got to cook with my mother recently, which is a rare experience. I also got to learn a new dish, which is not so rare, but what I like about this one is its variability. I think the origin is a Weight Watchers cookbook, but my mother uses a variety of low-fat recipe sources so don't quote me on that. Besides which, I've filed off the serial numbers. I'm giving you the version I used for my recent dinner party; I'll include some notes afterwards about variation.

Bella Braised Chicken
1 tbsp butter
1 medium onion, diced
~4 stalks celery, diced
~4 carrots, diced
~2 gloves garlic, minced
~5 medium potatoes, sliced very thin
3 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp black pepper
~2 lb chicken
~1 tbsp oil
14 1/2oz (i.e. 1 can) diced tomato
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 tbsp minced parsley
1 tsp dried thyme

Sauté the vegetables in the butter, then place in a large baking dish. Spread a layer of potato over the top. Combine the flour and the pepper, toss the chicken, then "brown" it in the same pan. Place it over the potato in the baking dish. Sauté the tomato, broth, wine, and spices in the same pan you've been using; scrape up any bits of chicken coating that stuck. Bring to a boil, then pour into baking dish. Cover, bake about 1 hour at 350.

The end result of this is quite tasty, but tends to be a large mass. When I made it with my mother, we user a layer of quartered mushrooms instead of the potatoes; the end result involved copious liquid. The next time I make this I think I'm going to leave out the potato so I get said quantities of sauce, then turn that into something resembling gravy.

We served it over fresh spinach fettuccine the first time, and then I used whole grain linguine the second. In the latter case this just felt really forced, probably because of the potato. I'm at a loss for what (if anything) to serve this version with. That being said, if I do go the gravy route next time I'm going to try it on rice.

Let me know if you try this with some variation I haven't mentioned here.