MADE: Stuffed Chicken with Wine Sauce

This recipe begins (as all good recipes do) with a simple instruction: cook a pound of bacon.

Okay, okay fine. Maybe that's not what you do on Friday afternoon. You and I are different people.

Ingredients
2-3 strips bacon
1/2 large yellow onion, diced
2 oz Cremini mushrooms, coarsely chopped
2 tsp salt
2 tsp brown sugar
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1/2 cup chicken stock
1/4 cup red wine
2 chicken breasts
2 oz soft goat cheese

Place bacon in a large frying pan and cook over medium-high heat until just crisp. Remove and set aside on a paper towel, to siphon off the grease. Keep two tablespoons (or so) of the bacon grease in the frying pan. Turn the heat down to medium and add the onion and mushrooms to the pan. Add the salt, sugar, and a dash of pepper, and stir to fully coat. Then smooth out the onion-mushroom mixture evenly in the pan, and leave to caramelize. Don't stir the vegetables often, but when you notice them beginning to brown in the pan--just before they're starting to stick and burn--toss in a few tablespoons of water and stir vigorously for a few seconds, before spreading the mixture out evenly again. Do this a few times to deglaze the mixture and speed up the caramelizing process. The whole deal should take about 15 minutes or so, or until the onions have gone from white, to clear, to a caramel-y brown. While the vegetables are caramelizing, chop the strips of bacon into small, 1/4" sized pieces.

Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees F.

As the caramelization process comes to a close, melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. When butter is melted, whisk in flour, until a thin paste forms. Continue whisking for about two minutes, then stir in the chicken broth (I used a bouillon cube dissolved in warm water) and wine. Keep stirring until mixture thickens--about five minutes. Give the mixture a dash of pepper if you're into pepper. (I am.) Once the sauce has begun to thicken, stir in the mushroom and onion mixture. (It might be beneficial to switch from a whisk to a wooden spoon as your implement-of-attack, here.) Stir for another minute or so, then remove from heat.

Butterfly (i.e. slice slightly open to create a bigger, flatter surface) two chicken breasts. To one side of each butterfly seam, pipe a line/glob of goat cheese, then sprinkle each with half of the diced bacon. Then, roll the edges of the chicken breast around this filling and place, seam-down, into an appropriately-sized baking dish. Pour the sauce over the chicken breasts and place in the oven, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Then, (if at any point in the cooking process you've tasted the sauce, this will not need saying, but,) DEVOUR.