Stuff Stuffed with Other Stuff

I highly recommend plating this dinner on a colorful plate, I made the mistake of using cream colored plates and this dinner looked so sad!  There is a serious lack of green in this dish, but it's super healthy and delicious, so put it on a green plate and you're good to go!

Well what the hell am I eating, you ask?  Food stuffed with other food!  Feta cheese stuffed spicy chicken breasts and Roasted Acorn Squash stuffed with sauteed carrots and couscous cooked with dried cranberries.  Hearty, healthy and delicious!  There are a lot of little steps to this dinner, but it's super easy.

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts

Butter (I'll divide as I go here)

Salt and pepper 

1 Acorn squash

Brown Sugar

Carrots

Couscous

Dried Cranberries

a little bit of Frank's hot sauce, maybe about 1/4 cup

Toothpicks

Feta Cheese

Process:

First, preheat the oven to 425.

Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray and set aside.  Cut the acorn squash in half so you have a top and bottom.  Cut a little bit off the top and bottom as needed so the halves can sit level on their butts. Scoop all of the seeds out of the middles and rub a little butter inside.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and as much brown sugar as you'd like.  Place these on the baking sheet with the open side down flat, or with the cup facing down if that makes more sense.  Set this aside, you want to put it in the oven at the same time as the chicken because they take the same amount of time to cook.

Using a sharp knife cut a slit in the thick side of each chicken breast so you have a little pouch.  Stuff the pouch with feta cheese (or blue cheese), then use the tooth picks to keep the pouch closed.  Sprinkle salt and pepper on each side.  Heat some olive oil in a cast iron skillet (or any skillet you can put in the oven) over medium-high heat.  Sear the chicken breasts on each side for 2 to 3 minutes to get some nice color then transfer to the oven along with the acorn squash.  Let both of these bake for about 30 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and the acorn squash is tender when you stab it with a fork (the inside part, obviously).

Meanwhile, put about 2 Tbsp of butter into a little sauce pan with about 1/4 cup of Frank's Hot sauce.  Let these simmer over low heat until the butter is melted.

Cook the couscous according to the package directions, it only takes 5 minutes to cook, so make it close to when the chicken is done.  I added dried cranberries to the couscous and let them sit together for 5 minutes then fluffed with a fork and set aside.  Sautee sliced carrots with a little salt, pepper and either fresh or powdered ginger.

When the chicken is cooked through, remove it from the oven and put on the pates (or if you need to keep it warm for a little longer while the squash cooks, place it in a pie pan on top of the stove) remove the toothpicks and spoon some of the sauce over the top.  You can use as much sauce as you like, it's quite spicy so just keep that in mind.  

Flip the squash halves right side up so you have a nice little cup sitting on your plate.  Fill it with the couscous and sauteed carrots, plop a chicken breast down next to the squash and you've got yourself dinner!  And just because there isn't anything green here doesn't mean it's not healthy.  Squash is very healthy and we all know the benefits of carrots.  Couscous is a great little grain and the dried cranberries really brighten it up.  If you did want to get some green goodness in there you could sautee some spinach with the carrots, but that texture freaks me out so I'll pass.  I usually stuff Acorn Squash with chopped zucchini, summer squash and carrots, but I didn't have those on hand tonight.