Chicken and Gruyere Turnovers

I made these for dinner the other night. Aren't they beautiful? Warm, flaky, buttery, browned puff pastry stuffed with chicken, Gruyere cheese and peas. Ty was very disappointed about the peas. His "ugh, peas" comment will prepare me well for motherhood. In the end, I don't think he cared too much about the peas since you couldn't really taste them.

I pulled this recipe from the March issue of Real Simple. I've gotten lots of good recipes from Real Simple and Southern Living over the years. I tear out the pages and put them in with the rest of the pile, and when I'm ready to try something new, I sift through my magazine pages and see what sounds good.

The hardest part of making the chicken turnovers was shredding the chicken and grating the cheese. Really, it's that easy. All the ingredients are pre-prepared (very Sandra Lee-esque), making the turnovers a breeze to prepare but still a sight to behold when they come out of the oven. Here's the recipe:

Chicken and Gruyere Turnovers

2 sheets thawed frozen puff pastry (one 17.25 oz package)
1 rotisserie chicken (I picked mine up from Brookshires)
Gruyere cheese
frozen peas

• Cut two sheets of thawed frozen puff pastry in half to form 4 rectangles.
• Dividing evenly, top half of each rectangle with a mixture of 1 1/2 cups shredded rotisserie chicken, 1 1/2 cups grated Gruyere and 1/2 cup frozen peas.
• Seal the pastries and brush the tops with beaten egg.
• Bake at 400 until golden, about 20 to 25 minutes.
• Serve with Dijon mustard.

This dish is very basic for how fanciful it ends up looking. I'm beginning to embrace the simplicity and power of puff pastry!

Was this dish one of our favorites or something I'll make regularly? Probably not. But it was fun to try. And at the end of the day, what's really better than a flaky, buttery pastry oozing with melted cheese?