Apple, Onion and Cheddar Stuffed Chicken Breasts

I am on a major apple kick this weekend. We're finally getting some nice cool fall weather, which always reminds me of apple picking excursions with my parents when I was a little kid. Also, I had a bunch of apples in the fridge that needed to be used before they went bad. I started off the day by making an apple pie, which came out lovely. I've finally begun to feel comfortable making pie from scratch and this was my first successful apple pie. But it was the entree at dinner that was something worth blogging about. I found a recipe online for chicken stuffed with apples and cheddar cheese, both of which I had plenty of in the fridge. However, the recipe seemed kind of bland and labor intensive, so I adapted it by adding more flavor and using one of my favorite techniques for cooking chicken: baking it in butter. The result was the perfect blend of savory and sweet:

Apple, Onion and Cheddar Stuffed Chicken Breast:

3 or 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast, butterflied and pounded thin
2 Apples, chopped into small pieces
1/4 cup Onion, also chopped small
1/2 cup plus a handful shredded cheddar cheese (more or less, I didn't measure, it doesn't really matter)
8 leaves of fresh sage, chopped fine (Could substitute dried)
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 stick of butter

Preheat oven to 425. Cut up butter and place in a glass baking dish. (I used a glass pie pan, but any glass or ceramic baking dish large enough to hold it all will work.) Place the pan in the oven as it warms up for a few minutes to start melting the butter just enough to coat the bottom of the pan.

-Mix together the onions, apples, half cup of cheese, sage, salt and pepper in a bowl.

-Spread stuffing mixture onto the pounded chicken breasts and carefully roll them up.

-Place rolled chicken breasts into the buttery pan. Spread any leftover stuffing mixture on top of the chicken breasts and top with some extra cheese to hold it all together as it cooks.

-Bake, basting with the melted butter about every 15 minutes, until the chicken is done and the topping is nice and browned (about 45 minutes). If the topping is starting to brown too much before the chicken is done, reduce the heat to about 350 until it's done.

-Serve warm.

This recipe would be very easy to adjust for personal preference. Use more or less onion, and cheese in the filling, to suit your tastes. You could add some chopped ham or crumbled, cooked bacon to the filling.

Tomorrow, I'm gonna use the rest of the apples to make some homemade apple sauce!