Oops, missed a food post

Totally forgot to post Wednesday night's dinner: Barbecue chicken!

It may be too cold outside to grill, but that doesn't mean you can't have some of your summer-time favorites! Thus; barbecue chicken is enjoyed in our house any time of year. Accompanied by long grain wild rice, asparagus, and corn bread.

 

Here's how we went about making this beautimus meal:

1. Set your oven to preheat to 400 degrees. Take your boneless, skinless chicken breasts and trim any excess fat

 

2. Season the breasts with whatever you prefer. Ours got the following:

- Salt

- Pepper

- Garlic powder

- Onion powder

- a healthy dose of smoked paprika (this really is the secret spice of barbecue for me, and McCormick now sells it in most grocery stores. It did for paprika what Chipotle did for Jalepeno.)

 

3. Heat up a large pan with some olive oil. You want it pretty hot before throwing the chicken in.

 

4. While waiting for the pan to heat up, mix a tablespoon or two of barbecue sauce (we use bottled KC Masterpiece original) with water in the bottom of a casserole dish (large enough to hold all your breasts.) This will help keep the breasts moist while cooking, without killing all the flavor. If you are feeling adventurous you can spice this up a bit with some paprika, or pepper.

 

5. Now is also a good time to get your corn bread mix together and ready to go in the oven. We use Krusteaz corn bread mix.

 

6. Now throw those breasts in the pan, and allow to sit 3-4 minutes per side in the heat. We aren't looking to cook them through, just get a solid sear on each side.

 

7. Once they are seared throw them in the casserole dish and slather on some barbecue sauce.

 

8. Throw the chicken and the cornbread in the oven, and plan on them taking out 20-30 minutes.

 

9. The rice we had takes about 25 minutes to cook, so as soon as everything else went in the oven, we started it per the directions. We like Uncle Ben's long grain wild rice, but we found the microwave version doesn't taste nearly as good as the original recipe.

 

10. About 10 minutes before the the rest is done, get water boiling for the asparagus. Once boiling, throw in the asparagus for 4-6 minutes, then drain and throw in an ice bath for a short time to stop the cooking.

 

11. If your asparagus is soggy, heat up a pan and toss in the asparagus with a little  olive oil and cook just long enough to crisp back up a bit.

 

That should about do it. Enjoy!! :)

 

And since I don't have enough pictures for a second post:

The lamb roast last night was delicious. We took out the potatoes and tossed them with some olive oil, garlic, rosemary, and pecorino cheese and baked them. All the veggies were mediocre, but the lamb was pretty dang good. I even made a gravy with some of the stock from the slow cooker. MmmmmM.