Hot! Hot! Hot!! Rachael Ray's Chipotle-Barbecue Chicken

We have yet another winner! This one is not for the faint of heart or tongue! I saw this recipe years ago, in the 'EveryDay with Rachael Ray' magazine:

Chipotle-Barbecue Chicken

It's way simple and quick, with just a few ingredients and a few minutes of prep to make the sauce. Since we are trying to eat just a touch healthier, though, I did swap out the butter for olive oil and probably only used two tablespoons, tops. And since her recipe serves four, I made just a touch less sauce and only cooked two pieces of chicken.

This recipe is hot, hot and MORE hot...but I do believe you can alter, lessen or increase the heat depending on how many chipotles in Adobo you use. I used 2, scraped out as many seeds as possible and removed the ribs/membranes/whatever you call them....yet, I could easily have knocked that down to half of ONE pepper, scraped, and probably still had adequate heat for our delicate palates. 

Unless you like scrubbing your baking pans, you will definitely want to line the pan with a piece of foil. That way, once it's cooked, discard the foil and clean up is much easier!  

I'm guessing that if you wanted to save hassle, you could just use a premade BBQ sauce of your choosing, in place of everything but the onion and garlic, but I highly recommend just making it as the recipe directs, it's a different flavor than processed BBQ sauce. Much brighter, less full of all those nasty chemicals and preservatives and sugars. 

Here's the final product. I served it with asparagii and some instant baby red mashed taters, which really helped counteract the heat. My beloved loaded up on carbs to get through his piece....I think he ate four pieces of bread and two helpings of taters. This chicken will definitely clear out your sinus cavities, so be prepared if you make it at full strength!

All in all, it's definitely a winner and will remain in rotation here, just with much less chipotle in future occurrences!  

The Winning Streak Continues: Bourbon Chicken

I found this delightful little recipe for Bourbon Chicken over on BigOven.com, via Pinterest, of course..and I knew I would eventually have to try it.  Whenever we eat at the foodcourt at the local mall, I tend to aim towards the Bourbon Street Grille, which has absolutely NO correlation to the street in New Orleans. Instead, the menu contains nothing but Chinese food, stir-fries, rice, egg rolls, etc.  and they have this divine rendition of Bourbon chicken that, for some reason, cannot be repeated at home. 

Regardless, always up for a challenge and already having tried the Bourbon Chicken seasoning mix from the International aisle at the store, I was ready to give this a shot. Other than chicken, most of the ingredients, you might already have on hand, like ketchup, soy sauce and apple cider vinegar. The only thing I amended was to use powdered ginger, instead of fresh....and the recipe really doesn't specify which form to use, so that's not much of a change. 

I used 3 thin-sliced chicken boobs, which admittedly was WAY less than enough, but made the full amount of sauce, which is fine, especially if you don't want dry rice!  

See...not enough chicken.  Fine for two servings, but not enough for seconds or leftovers. Bummer!

This was almost too easy. Sauteed the chicken, took it out, whipped up the sauce.....

Added chicken back to sauce, simmered for about 10 minutes, then DONE.  25 minutes, top to bottom.

Of course, I was so hungry by the time it was ready that I forgot to provide you with that finished product presentation shot...but you get the drift....add a scoop or more of rice to your plate, then top it with this. Dinner. Served. 

Way less hassle than the packaged seasoning mix variety...and you can control the heat, by decreasing or increasing the amount of red pepper flakes and Sriracha sauce....(I used about a tablespoon of Sriracha and just a sprinkling of flakes..) 

Yeah, the sugar content is higher (with the brown sugar) and sodium, but you could substitute a low-sodium soy sauce and use a brown-sugar substitute (to which I say NAY....), but other than that, it's very low fat, high protein and very good on the tastebuds! 

Oh yeah, and just start rice before you start the chicken (if you have a rice cooker)....or start the chicken about 20 minutes before the rice will be done, if you're making it via stovetop, and it'll all be ready at the same time!  

That and the husband really, really liked it!!! ( A bonus, when you consider that he doesn't order much more than Orange chicken -NO VEGETABLES and rice when we dine at Chinese restaurants!!)  

Seriously, try it.  Just use more chicken than I did!  

Here's the full recipe:   Bourbon Chicken

Last Week's Winner: A Whole Lotta Chicken Enchilada Flatbread