Caramelized Apple Stuffed Chicken Breast with Fontina and Cranberries

This wonderful recipe comes courtesy of Food Network with only a few of my own modifications. The chicken was perfectly moist thanks to the delicious marinade, and the stuffing combined the nuttiness of fontina cheese, the tang of dried cranberries, and the sweetness of caramelized apples. A perfect combination! The recipe below yields 8 servings. Enjoy!

HELPFUL HINTS
1. This is a great dish for dinner parties as the chicken breasts can be grilled and stuffed and then refrigerated up to 24 hours in advance.
2. Try to find chicken breasts that are thicker in the middle, giving you plenty of room for your stuffing.
3. I would recommend some sort of accompanying sauce. In the pictures below I made a cranberry wine sauce using 3 cups white wine, 1 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup dried cranberries and 1 Tbs dijon mustard, brought to a boil then simmered for several hours.

INGREDIENTS
Marinade
4 Tbs red wine vinegar
6 Tbs apple cider vinegar
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp dry mustard
4 tsp honey
5/6 cup olive oil

Chicken and Stuffing
8 chicken breasts, boneless and skinless
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 medium Fuji apples
1 Tbs unsalted butter
4 oz fontina cheese, shredded
4 oz dried cranberries

DIRECTIONS
Marinade
1. Place the red wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, the mustards and honey in a food processor.

















2. Turn it on and drizzle in the olive oil until fully incorporated / emulsified.

















3. Marinade the chicken breasts overnight in this mixture.

















Prep
1. Preheat grill to high.
2. Remove chicken breasts from the marinade and transfer to a plate.
3. Season them with salt and pepper.
4. Mark the chicken breasts by grilling them only long enough to make grill marks and then rotating them about 45 degrees to make crosshatch marks. Do this on one side only. The chicken breasts should still be completely raw inside.





























5. Hold breasts in the refrigerator until ready to stuff.

Stuffing
1. Peel, core, and very roughly chop the apples.
2. Melt the butter in a saute pan over medium high heat and add the apples.
3. Cook the apples for roughly 5 to 10 minutes or until they are deeply browned.

















4. Remove from heat and transfer to a mixing bowl.
5. Add the fontina and cranberries and mix.

















6. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper.

Chicken
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Cut a slit in the thicker side of the chicken breast about 1 inch wide, creating a pocket almost as large as the breast itself.

















3. Stuff the breasts with the apple stuffing mix, cramming in as much as possible without ripping the breast.
















4. At this point the breasts are ready to bake and can either be held in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours or baked right away.
5. When ready to bake, place on a baking sheet and bake for about 12-15 minutes or until an instant read thermometer registers 155 degrees in the thickest part of the breast.

Butternut Squash Soup with Fontina Crostini

This wonderful soup recipe comes courtesy of Giada De Laurentiis from foodnetwork.com. The consistency was perfectly creamy (it may have helped that I added a cup of heavy cream at the end) and the crostini on top was a great garnish. This is a great soup for a cold day, or snowy day in our case here in Utah. The recipe below yields 6 large servings. Enjoy!

HELPS

1. Before peeling, I placed each squash in the microwave for about 3 minutes, making it much easier to work with.

2. An immersion blender really is the way to go when making homemade soups from scratch. Relatively inexpensive, they will save you from having to clean up the giant mess that always seems to occur using a blender for hot liquids since you can do the blending right in the pot on the stove.

INGREDIENTS
Soup
2 Tbs butter, at room temperature
2 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, peeled and chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 1/2 lbs butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 3/4-inch pieces (about 7 to 8 cups)
6 cups low-sodium chicken stock
1/4 cup chopped fresh sage leaves
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Crostini
1/2 baguette, sliced diagonally into 1/2-inch thick slices
Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
2 Tbs chopped fresh sage leaves
1 cup grated fontina cheese
Kosher salt

DIRECTIONS
Soup
1. Prepare squash by peeling, removing seeds, then dicing into cubes.

2. In an 8-quart stockpot, add the butter and oil and melt together over medium-high heat.
3. Add the onion and carrot and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft, about 5 minutes.

4. Stir in the garlic and cook until aromatic, about 30 seconds.
5. Add the squash and the chicken stock.
















6. Bring the mixture to a boil and add the sage.
















7. Continue to boil until the vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes. Turn off the heat.
8. Using an immersion blender, blend the mixture until smooth and thick.
9. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Keep the soup warm over low heat.
















Crostini
1. Put an oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Arrange the bread slices on a baking sheet.
3. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with sage. Sprinkle the cheese on top and season with salt, to taste.
















4. Bake until the cheese has melted and the bread is light golden, about 6 to 8 minutes.
5. To serve, ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with the cheese crostini.