Maple ginger chicken and apples

Tender and saucy maple ginger chicken and apples: perfect fall comfort food that's healthy and super easy to prepare.

Given that it's finally starting to feel like fall, I seem to be eating a lot of cold-weather comfort foods. Gone are my insatiable cravings for cool summer salads or still-warm sun tea. Now, I'm all about slow roasting and crockpotting.

But still no pumpkin. I'm just not feeling the pumpkin love this year for some reason. No, I know the reason: too much pumpkin-spice this and pumpkin-laden that all over my social media feeds. I just can't do it. Not when there are so many other way more delicious fall fruits and veg out there, just waiting to be featured in a comfort food recipe. Like apples.

Clearly my awesome blogging friend Katie Webster of Healthy Seasonal Recipes agrees with me, as the recipe I'm sharing today for maple ginger chicken and apples comes directly from her new cookbook, Maple: 100 Sweet and Savory Recipes Featuring Maple Syrup. Peeps: I am over-the-moon excited about this book -- and not just because Katie is super-talented and one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. Like me, Katie is all about real-food recipes, made with fresh, healthy and seasonal ingredients that everyone in your family will go cray cray for. I have little post-it flags on more recipe pages than I can count in this cookbook. I'm a little bit in love with it and plan to give a copy to everyone I know for the holidays.

But you don't have to wait for the holidays because I'm going to give away a copy of Katie's cookbook to one of you this week! Simply follow the instructions in the widget following the recipe for your chance to win a copy.

If you don't win, don't worry. You can start your own obsession with Maple right now by making Katie's recipe for maple ginger chicken and apples. The sauced chicken is fall-from-the-bone tender and the apples add just the right amount of sweetness: it has quickly become one of Mr. Ninj's favorites -- and mine, too, because of how effortless it is. It's one of those recipes you can pop in the oven while you tackle the other things on your to-do list -- plus it makes the whole house smell like fall.

And you know I'm all about fall right now.

Are you loving fall right now? Leave a comment -- and don't forget to enter the Maple cookbook giveaway!

Maple Ginger Chicken and Apples

(from Maple by Katie Webster)

Ingredients:
1 shallot, finely sliced
3/4 cup apple cider
1/2 cup dark pure maple syrup
1 tablespoon finely grated peeled fresh ginger
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves, plus additional sprigs for the pan
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
8 bone-in chicken thighs (I have used a mixture of thighs and drumsticks, too)
3 medium apples, peeled, cored and quartered


Directions:
In a bowl, whisk together the first 8 ingredients (shallot through pepper). Place the chicken into a ziplock bag, pour in the marinade, then seal the bag and refrigerate for at least 12 hours, turning the bag occasionally to coat all the chicken.

Once the chicken has marinated, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Take the chicken from the bag and arrange the pieces plus the apples in a 9 x 13 baking dish. Tuck the thyme sprigs in and around the chicken, then pour the marinade over it. Bake, basting the chicken every once in a while, for about an hour or until fully cooked. And be sure to spoon some of the sauce over the chicken and apples when you serve it.

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