Thursday, February 26, 2009

Chicken Pillows

I am always happy to discover easy and kid-friendly recipes for my girls, and I was not let down by the Chicken Rolls recipe I found on the blog Melt My Butter, the other day. I was excited to find this blog by Janna, who is a pediatrician and mom of two brilliant and adorable little boys (who never fail to entertain. I've been reading her other blog, Keeping Up with the Jennings for months now, and her kids are quite the little characters).

Melt My Butter is a blog about family-friendly freezer cooking recipes, so that dinner can be made in double or triple batches and then frozen for convenience. Wow, sounds good to me! I was writing my weekly shopping list when she posted her Chicken Rolls recipe, so I decided to try that one first.

Ingredients:
2 cooked chicken breasts, diced or shredded
8 oz cream cheese, softened (reduced fat is the best)
2 cans Pillsbury crescent rolls (also try to get the reduced fat ones)
salt to taste
(optional: 1 cup chopped broccoli florets)

A way to make this recipe even easier, is to grill chicken ahead of time and freeze it. Chicken can be frozen twice - once while raw, and once after cooking. Making a bunch of grilled chicken ahead of time and pulling it out of the freezer when its needed cuts a ton of time from meal prep.

I have chicken cooking issues, in that I have this bizarre compulsion to chop my chicken into little bite sized pieces while its being cooked - I'm paranoid that it is still raw inside and that everyone I know and love with die of raw chicken disease (or something like that). Luckily most of the recipes I make call for chicken pieces, but if any of you come over for grilled chicken, just know you wont have to cut it yourself!

In a medium sized mixing bowl, mix chicken with cream cheese. I added broccoli because my kids love it and I'm always happy to find recipes that I can add more veggies to.

Plus, with all of the chicken and cream cheese, the broccoli taste is pretty masked. Even non-broccoli lovers will probably enjoy it with broccoli in it!

I had a hard time getting the rolls filled, as Annelie wanted me to spoon feed her all of the mixture. She loved it!

Roll out crescent rolls. Separate rolls into rectangles made up of 2 rolls. Each can yields 4 rectangles.

Put 1/8 of mixture in center of each rectangle. Fold over and press edges closed. Pinch closed any gaps in the perforated line between rolls of each rectangle.

Gracie decided they looked like "Chicken Pillows" so she renamed them and then invented the Yummy Yummy Chicken Pillow chant (in which she shouted out "Yummy yummy chicken pillows" over and over until I kicked her out of the kitchen and sent her to her room to play) which is now the chicken roll anthem in our house.

Place on baking sheet with a few inches of space around each one and bake as directed on can of rolls. My oven runs a little hot, so the time on the can was perfect, but with some stoves, give a couple of extra minutes, as the filling inside might need longer to cook.

And voila! They are done. They were quick, they were easy, and they were an absolute hit.

And the best part? They were so low mess that Annelie didn't have to eat her dinner in her diaper, like she usually does. With the exception of rubbing some of if in her hair, she was able to pick up her chicken pillow and eat it easily, without making a big mess. YAY!

I'll be keeping my eyes on Melt My Butter, eager for more kid friendly, easy recipes to try. Next on my list: Chicken Cordon Bleu Lasagna. Yum!

Enjoy!
xoxo,

21 comments:

Momma J said...

Just printed that one out - yummy!

Melanie @ Whimsical Creations said...

Yum! That filling sounds really good. I have made pockets like that using the cresent rolls, but filling them with ham and cheese. Pizza fixings would be good, too.

Carry Grace said...

Yum! I make something very similar to this but it doesn't have broccoli in it. I will have to make that addition next time.

The Double Dipped Life said...

What a great recipe! I'll have to try it with my picky kids!

Karen Erickson said...

Oooh I love an easy dinner recipe. Thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

Love it! Always looking for easy yummy dinners.

Jo

UniqueNurseGranny said...

Yummy Yummy to the Tummy,,,kick me our or I may eat them all...

Anonymous said...

I'm so making that for dinner tonight! Trader Joes sells pre-grilled chicken in strips :)

Karen Faulkner said...

These sound great! I have to say, from the title of your post I was expecting some handmade Etsy pillows with felt chicken appliques or something like that.

Cindys Creative Crochet said...

Perfect timing, I have left over roast chicken to make these with and cream cheese already in fridge as well as broccoli. I'll make biscuit dough instead of the rolls though. so awesome!

Mary Ann said...

I have a recipe that is very similar. My kids named it chicken puffs when they were little and they still request it now as teenagers.

PAC said...

mmm..this looks delish! I am marking, thank you!

Cathy said...

that looked yummy!! i just have to convert the measureents and find alternative products when I don't know what she's talking about lol...are the crescent rolls like puff pastry?

esque said...

Oh boy! Those look tasty! They'd go well with my cupcake, lol!

Janna said...

Glad you and your family loved these! Thanks for posting about my new blog. Hopefully I can keep up with posting new stuff. I should start taking pictures of recipes as I make it to post. Your post is much better with the photos.

Cathy, Pillsbury crescent rolls is a can of white bread dough. When you unroll the dough from the can, it has little perforation marks on it so you can tear it into 8 triangles to then roll up and make crescent shaped rolls. A good alternative would be frozen dough for making rolls that you would thaw and flatten, then place filling on, fold over, and crimp the edges, then bake. Or if you make homemade bread, the dough you use for that could be rolled into little rectangles about 3x5 inches for a good substitute.

I loved the comment expecting to see an Etsy post about chicken pillows. That made me laugh.

Anonymous said...

It sure sounded easy and yummy too :-) I can alternate shredded tuna instead of chicken. But the dough thing.will still have to see if I can find a "pre-made" dough. Thanks!

Marie said...

Wow, thanks for sharing...I'm always looking for easy and delicious recipes like that. Looks yummy!

Unknown said...

Great recipe! Thanks for sharing! The best part.. my kids LOVE broccoli!

Kim said...

do you own a cooking thermometer? they are not expensive and can bring peace of mind. If the chicken if over 155 degrees (some say less, I say not ) it's done. I cooked by temperature, not look as a cook for a while. I'm a bit paranoid about chicken too, so I understand ;)

::::Lula Boutique:::: said...

Yum!! This sounds delicious! Thanks for posting all of the photos too!

Cathe Holden said...

Delish! We always use green onions, but I'm LOVIN' the broccoli idea!!

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