Summer Chicken

You want stupid-easy? Have I got a recipe for you!

This is our favorite way to make chicken on the grill when it’s too hot to even think about cooking indoors. Here’s what you do:

Get yourself a big bowl or a glass baking dish and slap in as much chicken as you want (we go boneless-skinless breasts, but you can certainly go with any variety of chicken pieces you want; I’m not bossy). Over this, pour enough lemon juice to get a good soak (I use the bottled stuff, but if you’re fussy enough to squeeze it fresh, be my guest), drizzle in a tiny bit of olive oil (truth be told, I often skip the oil; I don’t find it makes that much of a flavor or cooking difference), a big helping of minced garlic (again, mine comes from a bottle because, while I almost always HAVE fresh garlic around, my family isn’t as wild about it as I am. The jar of minced garlic I get at the market is just zippy enough for flavor, but tame enough to not raise noisy objections from my dinner companions), and a sprinkling of oregano. Cover the dish and let this soak anywhere from a half hour to a full day (don’t be alarmed if you leave the chicken to soak overnight and it looks weird when you come back to it. The acid in the lemon juice will actually start to “cook” the meat - despite how it looks, it’ll be super-yummy, believe me).

Heat up your grill - gas or charcoal, makes no difference - and cook the chicken until the internal temperature registers at least 160. You can eat this any way you want, but our favorite treatment is to slice the meat on a diagonal and spread it over a huge plate of greens, drizzled with O’Mama’s too-yummy salad dressing (the recipe for which can be found here).

*I’ll post a picture the next time we make this - we’re doing burgers tonight…*

YUM!

BBQ!

I was going to wait until summer to publish this post - barbecue really is a summertime dish, I think - but Doc went and started a conversation about barbecue over at his place, and I threatened to start a fight by posting my recipe. Never let it be said that Chili doesn’t put up when she speaks up, so here it is.

Depending on the source, I either get a lot of crap or a lot of praise for my homemade barbecue sauce. My immediate family - up to and including the Bowyer clan - loves it. Those outside of my circle aren’t as easy a sell, though. Barbecue sauce is one of those highly personal preferences, I think; if it’s not exactly what you think “good” barbecue sauce is, then it’s just not good. I like a lot of barbecue sauces - mostly from restaurants; the stuff in bottles always tastes like I imagine burned plastic would taste - but I really do think my sauce is at least as good as any of those slathered on restaurant ribs. Of course, I’m a little biased, so take my opinion for what it’s worth.

I made this recipe up ENTIRELY out of my head; there is no place to lay credit for this as an original or an inspiration. Here it is:

Take half a pound of hickory smoked bacon and cut it into small pieces (I don’t bother peeling the rashers away from each other; there’s no need for that kind of fussiness). Drop the pieces into the bowl of a food processor and blitz them until they form a paste. Scrape this into a medium-large sauce pan, then drop a medium-to-large, quartered yellow onion into the food processor and blitz that until it’s mush. Scrape the onion into the bacon, turn the heat to medium, and cook the whole mess, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes (and trust me, it’s a mess - at this point, the recipe really resembles nothing so much as a pot full of vomit. Were it not for the gorgeous smell of bacon and onions - two of my favorite things - I literally might not be able to make it past this step).

Once the bacon is cooked through (it won’t get brown - or, rather, it shouldn’t - but after ten minutes over medium heat, it should be sufficiently cooked), upend a bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup into the pot and turn the heat down; it’s going to blop and burble all over your stove if you don’t. I usually use most of a standard size bottle (and I’m sorry, but all I have in my fridge at this moment is a “family size” bottle, so I don’t really know what the “standard” size is. Besides, I do all this by eye (and tongue), anyway, if you’ve not already guessed from my oh-so-precise measurements). Scoop in a few tablespoons of brown sugar (more or less, depending on your fancy), a shake or two of cayenne pepper (more or less, depending on your fancy) and a few tablespoons of mustard (again, more or less…) into the sauce. Stir it all together and let it simmer for about 10 minutes, then go back and taste it again, adjusting for sweetness or spice as you see fit.

That’s it!!

This stuff freezes beautifully. Because of all the vinegar in the ketchup, it never really gets ice-cube hard - it settles into a consistency not unlike fruit sorbet - so I find I can spoon out just what I need without having to defrost the whole batch. My most common use for this is “pulled chicken” sandwiches: I poach a few chicken breasts, shred the meat with forks, then stir it around in a little too much sauce and serve it in toasted bulky rolls with chips and (if I’ve got some) cole slaw.

YUM!