Italian Bake

Italian bake.  The picture alone made me start to drool.  I'm a fan of Italian subs myself, so I thought I'd give this a try to see if it'd turn out.  Salami, ham, turkey and cheese?  What could go wrong with this dish??

The recipe comes from Mr. Food Test Kitchen.  Read on for ingredients and directions:

What You'll Need:

• 1 (8-ounce) container refrigerated crescent rolls
• 8 slices deli turkey (about 1/2 pound)
• 8 slices deli ham (about 1/2 pound)
• 12 slices deli hard salami (about 1/2 pound)
• 8 slices Swiss cheese (about 1/2 pound)
• 1 (12-ounce) jar roasted peppers, drained
• 4 eggs, beaten

What To Do:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Unroll crescent roll dough without separating triangles. Separate dough into 2 squares along center cut line.
    
2. Place 1 square of dough into an 8-inch square baking dish; using your fingertips, press dough to fit bottom of dish.
    
3. Layer with half the turkey, ham, salami, Swiss cheese, and roasted peppers. Pour half of beaten eggs over peppers and repeat with remaining meats, cheese, and peppers.
    
4. Place remaining square of dough over peppers. Pour remaining beaten eggs over dough and cover lightly with foil.
    
5. Bake 20 minutes, remove foil, and bake an additional 20 to 22 minutes, or until golden and heated through. Let cool 15 to 20 minutes then cut and serve.

 Seems easy enough, right?  Pretty much just layering everything in a pan, should be a cinch to prep.

First off, I don't have a square baking dish so I used one of my circular ones.  Note to self, remember to buy one!! :)  The circular pan still worked out, so don't feel like you can't make it if you don't have a square one.  I pieced together two "rectangles" from the crescent roll and did my best not to make the dough too thin as I tried to get it to cover as much as I could.  Note: I didn't beat all 4 eggs together because if you read the recipe, it wants you to use half the eggs per layer, so 2 eggs per layer.

I started the layering process: turkey, ham, salami, swiss, and roasted peppers.  If you're curious about the roasted peppers, my husband and I found them in the same aisle as the pickles!  I was going crazy at the store when I was trying to look for them! :)

These are the peppers we ended up using

After spreading the peppers on the first layer, I poured 2 beaten eggs over everything and started the layering process over.  When the second layer of meats, cheese, and peppers were complete and I finished pouring the remaining 2 beaten eggs over them, I pieced together the remaining two rectangles of the crescent roll and placed it on top.  Notice it didn't completely cover everything.

Then started the waiting game, baking in the oven.  Since the baking time is split up into 20 increments, it actually went by fairly quickly.  The finished product smelled simply divine!  I couldn't wait to slice into it and have a taste!


Ready for the verdict?  Flavor is good, but not great. With the amount of deli meat the recipe calls for, it made it salty.  We recommend cutting the recommended amount in half!  Instead of the entire container of deli meats, use only half.  Have leftovers?  Don't keep them.  When warmed up the next day, the dish tasted different, meaning this dish should be like a pot luck dish or for when you have company over so nothing is left. 

Hopefully the notes we took for y'all mean a better outcome for when you make it!


Cheers!