Chicken Broccoli Braid

As I promised yesterday I am posting my Broccoli/Chicken or Chicken/Broccoli which ever you want to call it :) I have since made it again for my family. It is sooooo easy and sooooo yummilicous and soooooo pretty! You gotta add this one to your "tried and trues". The veggies are so colorful and that creamy chicken mixture looks hard to resist. What about that flaky buttery crust? As my Zeke would say...YUM! YUM! Adapted from "Pampered Chef" recipe Serves 4-6 Ingredients: 12 oz. cooked chicken, chopped (2 cups - about 3 cooked boneless skinless chicken breast halves) 1 C. broccoli, chopped 1/2 C. red bell pepper, chopped 1 clove garlic, pressed 4 oz. swiss, shredded (1 cup) 1/2 C. mayonnaise 1 teaspoon dillweed 1/4 tsp. salt 2 pkg. (8 oz. each) refrigerated crescent rolls 1 egg white, lightly beaten 2 T. slivered almonds (optional) **I also added 1tsp of onion powder Preheat oven to 375ºF. To cook the chicken I placed the breasts in a large soup kettle with plenty of water and one whole onion and 4-5 cloves of garlic. Salt the water well. Place on stove and cook over medium heat until tender and done. About 1 hour. Chop chicken and broccoli and place in bowl. Add chopped red bell pepper. Press garlic(I used the nice soft garlic from my chicken stock) over mixture and shred cheese over mixture. Add mayonnaise, dillwee and salt. Mix well. I refrigerated this mixture overnight to allow all of the spices and seasonings to marry well. Unroll package of crescent rolls. Do not separate. Arrange longest sides of dough across width of 12 x 15-inch pan and repeat with remaining package of dough. Roll out(I just pressed all seams together with my hands.) dough to seal perforations. On long side of pan, cut dough into strips 1 1/2 inches apart, 3 inches deep leaving approximately 6 inches in the center of dough for filling. Spread filling evenly over middle of dough. To braid: lift strips of dough across mixture to meet in center, twisting each strip one turn. Continue alternating strips to form braid (This part was confusing to me so I just braided the dough the same way I would hair). Tuck ends under to seal at ends. The tricky part is the overlapping. You don't want to overlap too many strips as they won't cook all the way through at the same rate. Brush egg white over dough and sprinkle with almonds. Baked 25-28 minutes or until deep golden brown.