Chicken-Broccoli Pocket Sandwiches

Kate here again with another recipe. Sorry about last month. I completely forgot. *Facepalm*

So I'm probably one of the last people on earth to hear about these: They're called EasyLunchBoxes and I love them. There is a large, medium, and small section for foods. It makes it really easy to pack fruits and veges. The compartments aren't sealed from each other but the company also sells little sauce containers with lids that fit perfectly into the large and medium compartments. I use mine to send peanut butter for dipping apples, hummus for dipping veges. They're also great for tiny servings of applesauce, yogurt, cottage cheese, mandarin oranges etc.

These sandwiches that I'm showing you today make a weekly appearance in my children's lunch boxes. I bake a large batch every couple of weeks and freeze them. When I want to send one in a lunch, I pull it out of the freezer and place the frozen sandwich in the lunch box. It thaws by lunch time. I've made quite a few different variations from deli meat and cheese to plain cheddar or pepper jack cheese to marinara sauce mozzarella and olives (we didn't like these as well) to the chicken and broccoli pocket you'll see here today.

First, mix up a batch of roll dough. This is the one I use:

9-10 cups flour (can make 5-7 cups whole wheat flour)
2-3 T. dry yeast
3 cups warm water
2/3 cup oil
1/2 cup honey or sugar
4 large eggs
4 tsp. salt

1. Mix 5 cups flour with the yeast. Add water, oil, and honey/sugar.

2. Mix well. About 2 minutes. Turn off mixer and let sponge for 10 minutes.

3. Add salt and 4 eggs. Turn on mixer, and add remaining flour 1 cup at a time until dough just starts to scrape sides of the bowl. This is a soft dough, a little on the sticky side.Knead for 4-5 minutes. This is a soft dough, a little on the sticky side.

4. Normally you would oil your hands and shape this dough into rolls, cover, and let rise until double and light. Then cook at 350° for 18-20 minutes. However, we're going to do something different.

Divide the dough into 3 sections. Lightly oil 3 cookie sheets. Roll out one section onto a cookie sheet. Use a pizza cutter to cut the dough in half lengthwise and into thirds crosswise. In the picture above, We were making ham and pepper jack sandwiches so we layed a piece of cheese on each section along with a piece of deli ham. But we're going to do something different for the next batch. You will need:

Cream Cheese
Salt & Pepper
Shredded Chicken (I opened a can of chicken, drained it, and shredded it with 2 forks.)
Small pieces of Steamed Broccoli

Combine the broccoli and chicken. Or not. You decide.

Spread each section of dough with a little cream cheese. Then sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Top with a little chicken and broccoli.

I divided this pan into 8 sections. I'm not really consistent.

Anyway, now you roll up each section.

Then tuck the ends under. The oil from the pan makes this a little tricky. Do your best. Turn it over so the tucked ends are against the pan.Now they're ready to go into a 350° oven. You had that preheating, right?

Cook for about 15 minutes. You want them golden brown. Place on a cookie sheet to cool. Then place in gallon ziploc bags and put in the freezer. Easy peasy! Even your children can do it. Mine do. We had a lunch batch cooking night for FHE a few weeks ago. All six children in the kitchen.

Pretty good results I'd say.

(Burritos, sandwich rolls, and cookies to freeze. Firehouse Macaroni and Cheese to keep in the fridge to be heated up and placed in hot thermoses.)