Pastetli

I had a bunch of parsley that I needed to use up, so I looked online to find a good recipe. Parsley salad? Yuck. Couscous? Not for me. But I did find this recipe for Pastetli (which is a Swiss meat pie) that sounded interesting. I mean, the actual recipe is a bit confusing (some mushrooms, some white wine, some brown gravy mix? Just how much is some? Oh, I see later on, 1-2 (to) dl of wine. How much is a dl again? I don't do metric. And the recipe ends with "Set everything aside to finish the rest of the meal." Um, what? How do I finish it when you just ended the instructions right there?). Apparently, the recipe was provided by someone's mother-in-law who is Swiss and did the translating (from what language, I'm not sure. What do they speak in Switzerland? German? French? Italian? Romansh?). So, I used the "recipe" as a starting point, and modified it to work with what I had in the house. Puff pastry? No, of course not, but I did have a package of Pillsbury crescent rolls in the fridge that expired recently. Time to use it up before I have to log it as food waste! Anyhow, dinner turned out pretty well, so here's my version:

Pastetli (Makes 5 servings, 7 WW points each)

• 1/2 bunch of fresh parsley (I used almost a whole bunch and it was too much. But my parsley wasn't as fresh as it should have been, so you may want to use more than 1/2)
• 2 cups of mushrooms
• 1 lemon
• 2 chicken breasts
• poultry seasoning (or paprika and garlic powder)
• black pepper
• 1 small onion
• 3 cloves of garlic (I like garlic and don't believe there is such a thing as too much)
• 1 package of brown gravy mix
• 1 cup of water for the gravy mix (or white wine or half and half)
• 1 package of Pillsbury crescent rolls (or similar)

-Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

-Chop the parsley leaves (try not to get too many stems). Dice the mushrooms. Place parsley and mushrooms in a small bowl, add the juice from one lemon, stir and set aside.

-Dice the raw chicken breasts. Season with poultry seasoning and black pepper. Place in skillet with onion and garlic. Cook until lightly browned on all sides.

-Make brown gravy mix according to the directions. Or substitute white wine for water if desired, or half and half if you want a richer creamier taste. (I just used water.) Add gravy to the chicken mixture, and add parsley/mushroom mixture. Stir to combine everything.

-Unroll crescent roll dough into one large rectangle on an ungreased cookie sheet. Press into a 13x8 inch rectangle, firmly pressing the perforations and seams to seal (or you could actually buy the seamless dough sheet. Yes, they do make such a thing, who knew?).

-(Okay, confession: this part I didn't really do. I tried to make these into 5 little rolled up chicken things, and although they tasted good, it really wasn't pretty. There's a reason why there's no picture posted with this recipe. So here's what I would do if I made this recipe again.) With the long side of the rectangle placed vertically, spoon the chicken mixture into a 4-inch-wide strip down the center of rectangle. With scissors or sharp knife, make cuts 1 inch apart on long sides of dough rectangle to within 1/2 inch of chicken mixture. Fold strips of dough up over chicken mixture to meet in center; pinch to seal. (To make it even fancier, you can kinda criss-cross the strips of dough, and let the chicken mixture peek out the top. Totally up to you.)

-Bake 18 to 24 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from cookie sheet; cut into crosswise slices. Serve warm. Apparently, peas are a traditional side dish with pastetli. We just heated up some frozen mixed veggies. Yum!