The mystery ingredients in the main course basket for this past weekend’s episode were:  crab meat, pesto, mini pizza calzones and alfalfa sprouts.  It sounds a little bit weird, but it can work.  The crab meat and calzones can be broken down, mixed together and used as a stuffing for the chicken, while the alfalfa sprouts will be tossed with some noodles and pesto sauce and served as a side.

Mini calzones: How would YOU repurpose these into a dish?

The chicken will be easy to make.  First flatten each piece with a meat hammer and then sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Set aside.  For the stuffing, the calzone is first placed in a food processor to crumb and then mixed with the crab meat along with some cooked spinach.  It is then spread onto the flattened chicken, then rolled up, pinned with toothpicks.  The chicken pieces are then placed in a baking dish and cooked in the oven for about 30-45 minutes at 350 F.

While the chicken is cooking, it is time to prepare the sprouts.  It’s kind of boring just to top the chicken with the sprouts (and if I’d be criticized for just “dumping” the sprouts onto the dish if I were actually competing on Chopped/Chopped Canada), so one definitely has to do SOMETHING with them.  I would actually mix them into a noodle dish.  So the long pasta (I suggest angel hair or spaghetti) must first be cooked.  To add some colour to the pasta, it is then tossed with some of the pesto sauce and a bit of the sprouts.  Because the pasta is hot, the sprouts will wilt a little bit, making it look a bit more noodle like, yet giving it a slightly different taste and shape.  The sprouts and noodles are then plated and topped with the chicken. It’s maybe a little too starchy, but hey, it uses the ingredients!

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