Savory Apple Stuffed Chicken – $.83

Hmm…so as I look in my fridge I see I have a piece of chicken, an apple, and like one egg left to my name. Ok, this should be interesting. My first thought was to combine the apple with bread to make a sweet and savory stuffing for the inside of the chicken, then breading and frying the rolled chicken using the egg. But since I can’t really fry stuff on this site and I thought the carbs were unnecessary (and I didn’t have any bread) I tried to go a healthy route. This was definitely an experiment, but a tasty one. Reminded me of Thanksgiving!

Yeah, my blood sugar was freaking out because I had about 4 cups of coffee that afternoon so I was not in the mood to make this look awesome. Learn from my mistakes, people.

Cut an apple into 4’s and cut off the seeds.

Peel it and chop it.

Add the apples to a heated, greased pan. Turn down to medium high heat. Ok, so how I made this dish interesting was adding a junk load of spices–but not just any spices! Strategic spices. I added garlic powder, onion powder, (because I didn’t have fresh garlic OR onion) sage, rosemary, thyme, parsley, marjoram, cinnamon, black pepper and a nice big pinch of salt. These are the kinds of spices I’d use in stuffing. If you want a totally different flavor, go for it!

Add a nice splash of water.

Cook till the liquid has evaporated and the apples have become soft- at least 7-10 minutes.

Add a squirt of mustard. You’re thinking, whoa whoa, mustard!? Yeah. It offsets the sweetness of the apples just enough to give it some depth. Stir for another 30 seconds or so and take off the heat.

On a cutting board flatten out a piece of chicken. (Feel free to use pork if you want, it’d still be awesome.) If you’re like me and don’t have a meat pounder thingy, use your palm to carefully but firmly flatten it. It’s kind of tricky because you want it as flat as possible but don’t put holes in it!

Add the apple mixture to one side of the chicken. What I should have done is actually put a piece of plastic wrap down first so I could roll it tighter but I forgot. Also, if you have twine you can use it too but of course, I didn’t have that either.

It’ll look something like this, hopefully prettier though. See how it barely wrapped around itself? That’s why you really want to flatten the chicken as much as possible so you don’t have the same problem I did.

Now, if yours was ugly like mine, don’t fret, it can still look good if you’re careful. In a VERY HOT, greased pan (did you catch that? Very, very hot, like almost smokin’ hot) drop the chicken roll face DOWN so the ugly flaps are getting cooked first. This will seal everything in so it shouldn’t fall apart.

This is really important… don’t flip it around 50 times and think you’re helping the situation. Let it sit there and cook for at least 3-4 minutes. If you’re starting to see it burn, just turn down the heat. If you flip it around it’s going to fall apart! Now you can turn it, cooking about 3-4 minutes on each side till it’s nice and golden brown. If the apples start falling out don’t worry, just keep cooking them too.

When it’s done cooking, take it off the heat and let it sit for just a minute before you cut it. Cut the roll on an angle just one time so you get two sharp edges. Place the rolls on the plate, edges up so you can see the apples. Serve over whatever you want. I just had some white jasmine rice and it was super good! Next time I’ll serve with either roasted russet potatoes or sweet potatoes though.

1 piece of chicken – $.58 (got it on sale, booyah)
1 apple – $.15
1 serving Jasmine rice – $.10
1 serving – $.83