Saturday, October 22, 2011

Homemade Chicken Bake

Whenever I have the opportunity to eat a meal at Costco (which isn't often, since I'm a horribly compulsive grocery shopper and therefore forbidden to have my own card), I always go for the "Chicken Bake".  Basically a calzone, it's chickeny, bacony, cheesy good.  A month or two ago my mom took me shopping there, and I discovered Chicken Bake in the freezer section.  I immediately snatched up a box for eating at home.

Last week we ate the last of our Chicken Bakes, but, when asked what my daughter wanted to eat for dinners this week, that was her request.  "CHICKEN BAKE!!!"  Strange, because she didn't seem all that enamored of it when we had them for lunch, but of course I was happy to oblige and figure out a way to make them myself.

There are no measurements in the assembly because, in my typical pizza fashion, I just sprinkled things on till it looked right.

Homemade Chicken Bake
makes 4 large calzones

2 tubes pizza crust in a can (could also substitute homemade pizza dough - I was in a hurry so I used the prebought).
Caeser dressing, ranch dressing, or alfredo sauce
1 cup cooked, shredded chicken
1/2 pound bacon, diced and fried
2 green onions, chopped
shredded parmesan cheese
shredded mozzarella or Italian blend cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Grease a cookie sheet or line it with parchment paper or a Silpat.

Divide each pizza crust in half.  Roll out into a rectangle, about 6 inches by 8 inches.  You want to be looking at it the long way, not the tall way (i.e. "landscape", not "portrait", if we were talking about printing).

Spread dressing or sauce over crust, stopping about 1/2 inch from the edges.

Spread toppings in a 4-inch-wide strip down the middle of the crust, stopping about 1 inch from the top and bottom.  Keep a little extra parmesan cheese for the top. 

Fold left and right edges over; pinch the ends together and tuck under.  Place seam side down on your baking sheet.  Repeat with remaining three pieces of crust.

Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.  Spread a little bit of additional dressing or sauce on top, and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.  Bake an additional 5 - 8 minutes until cheese is melted and brown.

Excellent served with salad on the side.

If you want to make this in the morning, just assemble it and put it in the fridge until time to make dinner.  Add an additional 5 minutes to your initial baking time.

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