Barbecued Chicken

​Just in case you were wondering- yes, we all survived the first week back at school.

I really appreciated the fact that the kids started back to school on Wednesday so we could ease back into our school routine slowly. It wasn't easy to get everyone up and going in the morning after sleeping in all summer.  What was even harder was trying to stay awake past 9:00 in the evening.  (Early wake up calls = early bedtimes.)  

I had to readjust our dinner time this week as well.  Since we were eating breakfast and lunch quite a bit earlier - we were hungry for dinner earlier too.  My daughter also had to report to soccer camp at 6:00 every evening this week which was just the incentive I needed to start getting meals on the table earlier.  

Barbecued chicken is a great weeknight meal that I can prep in the afternoon and have it all ready to throw on the grill in the evening.  (I even made the barbecue sauce ahead of time.)  I'm going to keep this recipe close for those nights when we are juggling homework and practice and camp.  This recipe came from my Taste of Home magazine. 

​Barbecued Chicken
2 Tablespoons oil
1/4 cup tomato paste
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons onion powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup apple cider
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup molasses
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons mustard powder
kosher salt
4 chicken breasts with ribs

4-3-2-1 spice rub
4 Tablespoons kosher salt
3 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 Tablespoons paprika
1 Tablespoon cayenne pepper

​Heat oil in a medium saucepan.  Add tomato paste and cook until paste is brick-red.

​Add garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, cayenne and pepper.  Cook 1 minute.  

​Add vinegar, orange juice, brown sugar, molasses, Worcestershire, mustard powder and 3 cups water.

​Cook, stirring occasionally until reduced by half.  (about 1 hour)  Season with salt.

​Combine spice rub ingredients and rub over chicken.

​Grill chicken, turning and basting with barbecue sauce every  15-20 minutes.

​The name of this recipe in the magazine was burn free barbecue chicken.  As irony has it, I managed to burn it.  Not too bad though - it was still salvageable.

There was a lot of barbecue sauce leftover so it looks like we will be having this chicken again soon.  Yum.

​CIao!

Click here for a printable version of this reicpe