Recipe for Baked Chicken Stuffed with Pesto and Cheese

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites, and this recipe for Baked Chicken Stuffed with Pesto and Cheese is something I've made over and over. It's also been one of the most popular recipes on the blog for a while now; hope you enjoy if you haven't tried it yet!) For several weeks now I've been keeping an eye on the basil plants in my garden, hoping to get one more batch of pesto in the freezer before the plants started to freeze. I'm always wanting to adapt recipes every time I make them, and when I looked at the old version of this I knew I wanted to change it. Use very large chicken breasts for this and then pound the heck out of them until they're as thin as you can possibly get them! Mix together pesto, sour cream, and grated mozzarella to make the stuffing. Spread a thin layer of the stuffing mixture over each chicken breast, stopping about 1/2 inch away from the edge. Instructions: Preheat oven to 375F/190C.

Cajun Chicken Stuffed with Pepper Jack Cheese & Spinach **NEW: Check out my new twist to this dish: Hasselback Chicken! It's Cajun spiced and stuffed with pepper jack cheese & spinach. It's just as delicious but easier to make and takes less time to cook! Oh, and I'm pretty sure it will save plenty of trees because it eliminates the need for toothpicks altogether! Cheese was $1.50 a block at my local grocery store, so I took advantage of the sale and bought a few, one of which was pepper jack cheese. My husband and I snacked on some of the pepper jack over the weekend and started chatting about the different dishes we could create with it and we came up with this. **If you have little ones eating this or your spice tolerance is fairly low, halve the Cajun seasoning and double the breadcrumbs. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Flatten the chicken to 1/4-inch thickness. In a medium bowl, combine the pepper jack cheese, spinach, salt and pepper. Combine the Cajun seasoning and breadcrumbs together in a small bowl. Enjoy!