From our Food Goddess, TaMara:
A few years ago, I picked 5 gallons of crab apples and made up a large batch of apple butter. It made a LOT of butter. I gave it away, I tucked some away, I kept a jar open in the frig for toast. It lasted forever, so I was always looking for different things to do with it (btw, was a great addition to pumpkin pie).
I thought it might be good with chicken or pork and eventually decided that barbecue chicken thighs would be where I started. A spicy, smoky mix of apple butter, chipolte peppers in adobo sauce and a touch of spices made the perfect sauce. Alas, all my apple butter is gone and I don’t anticipate making it again (ever, not even if you paid me). Canning is not my thing. But the Farmer’s Market to the rescue for tonight’s featured recipe, where I found someone who likes to can and I was happy to pay.
In that fruity vein, I have two more fruit inspired grilled chicken recipes:
Cranberry Grilled Chicken, click here for the recipe, mustard gives it a bit of bite, but you can add cayenne or red pepper flakes to kick it up a bit more.
Can’t go wrong with citrus and chicken, here’s a marinade that is a notch above traditional lemon chicken, Sunrise Chicken (click here).
JeffreyW puts his smoker to work on Smoked Chicken, pictured below and directions here.
One of my favorite grilled sides (besides grilled corn) is Sweet Peppers and Potatoes, recipe here.
What’s cooking in your backyard this weekend? If you grill, what’s your preference – coals, wood pellets, or gas?
For the pet lovers, a quick Bixby update here.
For tonight’s featured recipe, you can make it is as spicy or mild as you like by adjusting the number of peppers you add. Bone-in, skin on thighs would work best, but you can easily switch out leg quarters or bone-in, skin on breasts.
Chipolte-Apple Butter Barbecue Chicken
8 chicken thighs
Salt & Pepper
1 tsp crushed garlic————
1 cup apple butter
1/2 yellow onion
2 tbsp chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (to start, add more as desired)
2 tsp crushed garlic
1/4 tsp saltSeason thighs with 1 tsp crushed garlic, salt and pepper. Let sit for 5-10 minutes while oven or grill preheats to 375 degrees. Bake or grill chicken for 15 minutes. Meanwhile in a blender or food processor, blend together remaining ingredients until smooth. Brush on chicken thighs thickly at the 15 minute mark and add more every 5 minutes until chicken reaches 165 degrees internal temperature (usually 10-15 minutes for a total cooking time of 25 to 30 minutes). Serve with lots of napkins.
That’s it for this week. I’m working on a couple of breakfast pizzas (inspired by a restaurant review I stumble upon) so those might make an appearance in the next week or so. Until then, have a great weekend – TaMara
JPL
It’s to hot to cook here. My peppers are going crazy. The habanero peppers are being sent home with sons but I have an overload of banana peppers which I love in salads.
rikyrah
Grilled chicken rocks.
Marinated…rubbed….grilled chicken is delicious so many ways
Elmo
My “ornamental” peppers are finally starting to ripen. Handle with gloves. Chopping one made me suddenly start to cough.
One pepper seasons an entire pan of ground beef or turkey for tacos. They are about two-thirds the size of my pinky finger, and they are my favorite thing in all of Christendom. HOT but so tasty!!
ThresherK
Jeebus, the size of that paw!
With a summer pool party to attend, my reputation for dessert sent me in search of something with fruit goodness.
A pineapple upside-down cheesecake, recipe straight from Kraft’s website. In the day when people got their ideas from packaging, it could well have graced the back of a box of cream cheese, or a can of pineapple (even though I used a fresh one).
Am I going mainstream?
schrodinger's cat
@ThresherK: I made a fresh blueberry and ricotta cheesecake yesterday. It was delicious, even if I do say so myself.
Zinsky
Sounds like a wonderfully yummy way to grill chicken and I intend to try it soon. Thank you!
scav
That’s clearly a Hound of The Baskervilles body double apparently waiting to be discovered in a Malt Shop.
Yatsuno
@JPL: Make habañero vodka! Get a 750 ml bottle of cheap vodka (it works better with the cheap stuff) add in about 12-15 of the habañeros, cork it up, and leave it for about 2 weeks. You will see the vodka turn this wonder orange hue and also you have the BEST Bloody Mary of your life!
MomSense
@Yatsuno:
Yum. Definitely trying that.
@TaMara
Now that’s a paw! I love Bixby.
The chicken looks delicious.
BD of MN
Got back yesterday from a whirlwind 4 day vacation/tour of Northern MN, saw a whole bunch of Roadside America landmarks, stuff we’ve heard about but never stopped to check out. Saw the World’s Largest Ball of Twine Made by One Man in Darwin; checked out the Kensington Runestone in Alexandria, saw the World’s Largest Turkey in Frazee; Saw two different St. Urho monuments in Menagha and Finland, MN (he drove the grasshoppers out of Finland on March 16th, according to legend…) and a few other lesser attractions, had a grand time…
Grilled burgers and Italian Sausages (from TJ’s Country Store in Mahtowa) tonight, I only use charcoal, and pretty much exclusively use Royal Oak hardwood lump charcoal…
SWMBO
I found this recipe on facebook. It calls for frozen pink lemonade concentrate. I changed it to limeade and left off the food coloring. Sweet Baby Jeebus, it was almost key lime pie. Serve frozen like it says. Brings the awesome and it takes 5 minutes to stir together. The hard part is letting it freeze overnight.
http://www.itisakeeper.com/11713/pink-lemonade-pie/
Next time I’m going to go with orange juice concentrate to see if it makes a dreamsicle pie.
NotMax
None of the above. As it’s just li’l old me, too much of a hassle to deal with firing up an outdoor grill to cook for one. Have an indoor electric countertop barbecue grill (round ceramic container, real barbecue grill above the heat element – to get those all important grill marks) that works just dandy. Has a basin under the element into which one puts some water to catch drippings. Adding a splash or two of liquid smoke to that water is close enough to outdoor bbq-ing when it’s just a slab o’ meat for me.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: I had a plastic version of that. I used it twice and the meat came out great, but I gave it away because I could smell the plastic when it got hot.
I figured it was surely as unhealthy as it was unappetizing.
dp
Purely charcoal at this point, although my wife would like to get a gas grill for the convenience.
J R in WV
I use hardwood lump charcoal. Did you know that “charcoal” briquetts contain bits of actual coal? As in dug from underground ancient 135,000,000 year old trees and ferns?
If you try, you can smell the aroma of burning coal, before you put the neat and veges on to grill.
So I stick to hardwood lump charcoal, which is just partially burned scrap wood from a furniture factory or sawmill. Sometimes I find a less-charcoaled piece of wood that you can tell was once maple, or such.
It is a little harder to start, so I started using a torch, The same torch I use to solder copper pipe when doing a plumbing repair. It burns so hot you can light charcoal with just 40 or 50 seconds of applied heat. I quit using “starter fluid” because sometimes I could taste the petroleum chemical taste, if I didn’t get it all completely burned off before starting the chicken or whatever. So now no risk, just pour in the fuel, lumps of partly burned wood, light it, wait for it to all turn red, cook.