Mediterranean Chicken En Croute

My siblings' first food challenge for the summer was spinach.  I posted a delicious recipe for Gnocchi with Spinach Pesto on our food challenge blog (from Laura Halbert), but as I was searching for spinach recipe ideas, I came across so many that I wanted to try.  I saw this one on allrecipes, and modified it a little.  It was so easy, and so delicious!  Ben even liked it, and he doesn't like spinach, tomatoes, or feta cheese.  :)  Amelia and Megan didn't like it, but then they don't like much of anything right now.

Mediterranean Chicken En Croute

(serves 2 very hungry people)

2 cups chopped fresh spinach
2 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (I butterflied a single huge chicken breast)
2 tablespoons pesto (I used the spinach pesto I'd made for our challenge)
1/3 cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes
1/4 cup crumbled herbed feta cheese
1 frozen puff pastry sheet, thawed, cut in half

Preheat oven to 375°.  Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil, and spray with cooking spray.

Lay out half of a sheet of puff pastry on a work surface.  Layer with 1/4 of the spinach, one chicken breast half, half of the pesto, half of the tomatoes, half of the feta, and 1/4 of the spinach.  Gather the edges of the puff pastry at the top of the chicken parcel, and pinch to seal.  Turn the parcel upside down on the baking sheet (so the seam is down).  Repeat with the remaining ingredients.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes.


I didn't read the instructions very well, and I cooked the spinach first.  I ended up using a lot more than 2 cups of fresh spinach, and it was still very tasty.  But next time I will skip the extra step and just use raw spinach.  Also, I didn't measure a single ingredient, I just layered stuff on until it looked right.  The parcels were very large when they were cooked, and I would probably have been fine eating only a half of one, with enough other side dishes.