Chicken in Puff Pastry

This is such a simple and tasty meal. It started when I went to one of my (still) favorite lunch places in college. It's called the Wine and Cheese Gallery and it's in Gainvesille, FL. It's a great wine shop and they only serve food for lunch but everyday they have the most amazing salads, sandwiches, quiches, etc.

One day they had a special. It was chicken, cheese and herbs in puff pastry served with a spinach salad. It was wonderful and had me hooked! From then on I always looked at their specials first to see if their puff pastry special was being offered that day. If it was there, my lunch choice was made! They also served it with shrimp which was also amazing.

A while after we moved to Orlando, I bought puff pastry for something else I was making. Since puff pastry comes in packages of 2 at a time, I had to think of something to do with the unused sheet. I remembered the amazing dish at Wine and Cheese and decided to attempt to recreate it!

The original dish used fresh herbs but I didn't have any so I threw in pesto instead. It was absolutely delicious! If you have fresh thyme, basil, oregano or parsely, throw those in because they would work well with this. Otherwise, feel free to use store-bought pesto. I also decided to saute some mushrooms and throw those in for more flavor. (Also, since Brad isn't a huge fan of veggies, I try to throw them in wherever I can!)

For the most part, I just threw this together based on my memory of the dish. I didn't really measure as I went along and just added what sounded good to me. I tried to estimate as best I could for the recipe below. Be warned, the recipe below makes quite a bit of filling. If you don't think you'll use it all, cut back on the cream cheese and the rest of the ingredients to reduce the amount of the filling. Or just refrigerate the leftover filling and make these again for dinner later in the week!

Chicken in Puff Pastry
(Original recipe, inspired by Wine and Cheese Gallery)

1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
3/4 cup sliced mushroom
8 oz. cream Cheese, softened
1 cup shredded or diced cooked chicken (NOTE: Can be pre-packaged fully-cooked chicken like this or leftover grilled or rotisserie chicken)
1 Tbsp Dijon-style mustard
2 Tbsp tore-bought pesto (This is my favorite brand.)
Salt and pepper, to taste

1 sheet of puff pastry
1 egg
1 tablespoon water

Preheat oven to 400 F. Thaw puff pastry sheet at room temperature for 30 minutes. Beat egg and water together in a small dish and set aside.

Add onion and garlic to a medium saute pan over medium-high heat and cook until onion starts to soften and turn translucent. Add mushrooms and cook until tender. Remove from heat and strain. Combine cream cheese, chicken, mushroom mixture, mustard, and pesto. Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir gently to combine. Refrigerate 30 minutes to an hour to allow the mixture to firm up. (Note: This is optional but I found that making the pastries was easier when the stuffing was less runny and more firm.)

Unfold on puff pastry on a lightly floured surface and roll out slightly to create a 14" rectangle. Cut pastry in 4 squares and lay each square of pastry onto a baking sheet sprayed with nonstick spray.

Fill the center of each square about 1/4 to 1/3 full of cream cheese mixture. Brush the sides of the pastry squares with the egg wash and fold in half diagonally to create a triangle shape. Crimp the edges with a fork to seal. Once all of the pastries are finished, brush the tops with more egg wash and use a sharp knife to cut 2-3 slits in the top of the pastry to allow the steam to vent. Place in oven and bake for approximately 20 minutes or until the pastry has puffed and is golden brown.

I served this dinner with a side salad dressed with a vinaigrette. While these little pastries taste amazing, they can me quite heavy and are almost a meal to themselves!

Enjoy!
~Layne

Grilled Pesto Chicken

Brad just got his first grill for Christmas so we are grilling a lot lately. And, luckily, he loves it! I like it not only because the grill adds so much flavor on it's own, but also because it's very easy to stay healthy and low fat by grilling. On that note, I adapted this Cooking Light recipe last week and it was wonderful! By far the best thing we've had on the grill.

Grilled Pesto Chicken
(adapted from Cooking Light)

2 tbsp chopped fresh oregano
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup basil pesto
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
1 tsp minced garlic
Juice of one lemon
1 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Combine the first 7 ingredients in a bowl, and stir well. Place the chicken in a baggie and add half of the sauce to the bag and. Seal bag and turn to coat chicken well. Marinade in refrigerator for 30 minutes (longer would be better, up to 4 hours but I didn't have much time).


Prepare grill. Place chicken breasts on grill rack and grill for about 6 minutes per side or until the chicken is done, turning occasionally.


Remove from grill and top with remaining pesto mixture. We served this with grilled corn, sauteed mushrooms and rolls. It was delicious. Very moist chicken and the sauce was so flavorful!

Enjoy!
~Layne

Chicken Tortilla Soup

So this is the first post that truly tested the limits of the whole hatred-of-tomatoes theme. I love tortilla soup but I'm pretty picky about it. I'm not a fan of the very thin broth-y soups that taste very much like tomato soup with taco seasoning and some tortilla chips thrown on top for good measure. For me, those soups don't have any interest or character and taste way to much like raw tomatoes to be tasty. No, I prefer the creamier versions where you can tell the flour tortillas have lent their starchy goodness to the whole soup and it really tastes like a chicken taco on a flour tortilla with all the fixin's was just blended up and stuck in a bowl for you.

Since it has been unusually cool these last couple of weeks, I've been thinking a hot bowl of soup would hit the spot. I found this recipe on Cooking Light and decided to give it a go, but of course I tweaked it a bit. Since it was our main course I added some chicken to the soup. I also decreased the tomato sauce and added some skim milk to help add a creaminess. The end result: my official taste tester (Brad, the husband) approves. In fact, he loved it. I actually really liked it too but it bordered on almost too tomato-y for my taste. Next time I may add a little less tomato sauce and a little more milk. I like to play around with ratios until I get it just right, even still I really enjoyed it. But I couldn't eat the whole bowl. No worries, Brad finished off his and mine too. And he went back for seconds and thirds, that's right, he had it for dinner three nights in a row. He just couldn't stop talking about it! I always love having his seal of approval.

Chicken Tortilla Soup
(adapted from Cooking Light)

3/4 lb boneless, skinless chicken tenders
1 whole wheat flour tortilla diced into bite-size pieces
1/2 red onion, diced
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 15 oz can tomato sauce
1 cups water
1/2 cup skim milk
1 14 oz can fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 cup favorite bottled salsa
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon fresh cilantro

Optional Toppings:
shredded sharp cheddar cheese, light sour cream, tortilla chips, etc

Season chicken with salt and pepper on both sides and sear in a soup pot over medium-high heat for about 4 minutes per side. Remove from pot and slice into bite size pieces and set aside. In the same pot, add onion and saute over low heat until soft and almost translucent. Add garlic and saute for another minute or two. Then add tomato sauce, water, milk, broth, salsa and spices. Be sure to stir well and scrap up all the browned chicken and onion bits from the bottom of the pan (read: flavor!) Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10-12 minutes.


This is where I did something I have a feeling most would find strange. I tend to like my soups either super thick or pretty creamy and not really anywhere in between. So I pulled out my handy-dandy new immersion blender and blended the soup while still in the pot on the stove to make the texture nice and smooth. Of course this step is optional.


Afterward, I added the diced chicken and tortilla pieces back into the soup and simmered on low for another 2-3 minutes just to combine the flavors. (Beware: only add the sliced tortillas to the soup if it's going to be eaten immediately. We learned the hard way that if they sit in the soup too long they got real soggy real quick and I wasn't a fan.) Serve with a dollop of light sour cream and a pinch of grated cheddar cheese. I also served this soup with a spinach salad and side of black beans.

Enjoy!
~Layne