Puff Pastry Perfection Pockets

In a perfect world, cream cheese would be present in every meal.  Actually, sometimes I start with cream cheese and try to build a meal around it. Much like when I buy a pair of shoes and then desperately try to find an outfit to go with them….

Cream cheese is easily one of my favorite things.  It is so versatile.  It is present in almost every dip that I like. In melted form it makes sauces creamy and delicious, it is phenomenal slathered an inch thick on a fresh toasty bagel and need I remind you that it is a key player in cheesecake?

I have had cream cheese stuffed chicken breasts before, but these are a billion times better. They are little pillows of heaven stuffed with melty cream cheese and BACON! Not to mention…FIET FRIENDLY! I know they probably have another name, but when I was scanning the site I didn’t see it anywhere....in English.  So if you come across the name, you win the prize of knowing what these are called. Pinterest Link 

Besides, I made some tweaks to that recipe so I settled on it being fine to rename it: Puff Pastry Perfection Pockets.  I think it describes them perfectly.   

Ingredients:

1 sheet of Puff pastry

12 oz of thawed chicken breasts cut into 4 equal sizes

4 oz cream cheese softened*

2 Tablespoons of fresh parsley chopped

2 green onions chopped

2 pieces of cooked bacon chopped*

1 teaspoon of garlic salt

¼ teaspoon of black pepper

Before I get into the how-tos of these incredible delights, I need to go on a chicken breast rant…..

We buy the large quantities of frozen chicken breasts that happen to be individually wrapped, which is key.  This way you don’t get frostbite trying to break apart chicken breasts.  My issue is….the bag states that a serving size is 4 oz.  Great.  But the individually wrapped chicken is not 4 oz.  Some are 6, some are 8, some are 4. Now this took me a solid year to realize unfortunately.  Is it too much to ask that the chicken all be uniformly sized before they become “store ready” so that the breasts all be identically sized?  Or at very least, on each individually wrapped piece, stamp the actual weight of the chicken breast? Am I right? Or am I right?

Ok now on to the directions:

Very important: Thaw out the puff pastry on the counter for 40 minutes.  Otherwise you can’t work the dough because it is...well...frozen.  Once the dough is soft, take a rolling pin and roll it out a little thinner and make sure the creases are gone from where it was previously folded.  Tip: sprinkle some flour on the rolling pin and dough.  The dough can be pretty sticky and this flour will save you from having an epic meltdown if the dough rips (I know from experience). Cut the dough into 4 equal parts.

Next mix together the cream cheese, parsley, green onions and bacon and divide into 4 equal parts.

As far as the chicken goes….We had two 6 oz chicken breasts so I cut them in half first.  And then sliced into the side…I believe this may be called “butterflying” them.  But don’t quote me on this.

Add the cream cheese evenly to the middle of each piece of raw chicken and fold the chicken over as if it has swallowed the cream cheese mixture. 

Then place the chicken, seam side down on the puff pastry piece.  You could get all design-y here on how you wrap the chicken but I chose the standard envelope seal and then placed them seam side down on parchment paper. 

Take note my friends….YOU NEED FOIL OR PARCHMENT PAPER!! A little of the cream cheese will inevitable seep out on at least one.  It is just the circle of life. Make sure you serve that one to someone else. Don’t judge…trust me, you want ALL of the cream cheese filling.  The paper or foil will ensure that your delicate puff pastry doesn’t stick to the pan. 

I sprayed the top of each pocket with butter flavored Pam and sprinkled with Garlic Salt. Bake at 400 degrees for 35 min and you will be presented with this:

Ok I know….not exciting.  So I cut into it for a better visual.

Amazing.  Delicious. The dough is flaky and buttery, the chicken is surprisingly tender and juicy and the cream cheese mixture coats everything nicely…..I could have eaten a bowl of it plain in all honesty.  Plus, each pocket is 373 calories based on the ingredients I used, therefore, Fiet friendly!  You need to try this. You NEED to.  As soon as we were done eating I started rifling through the fridge and freezer to see if I had enough left to make these again….tomorrow. 

*I did use fat free cream cheese and turkey bacon.  The cream cheese was still delicious, but I am convinced that these would taste even better with reduced fat cream cheese or full fat.  I am a cream cheese snob and can hardly bare the taste of reduced fat or fat free normally, but there were enough other flavor bits to mask the weird aftertaste of fat free here. But totally up to you.