Barbecued Chicken with Peach Barbecue Sauce

I was posting earlier today about some cooking I've done recently and mentioned some barbecued chicken I made earlier this week. My roommate Brett and his girlfriend Emily were over and we collectively decided to do some BBQ chicken. Part of that included me making a homemade barbecue sauce (the base recipe I've already posted here) and I recalled last weekend when I was over at mom and dad's eating a fresh peach. I had mentioned to my mom at the time that the peach would be a great additive for a barbecue sauce. So, I set about experimenting with my standard sauce and I was pretty pleased with the result (as was my super-picky roommate!). (Sorry, no pictures with this one. Didn't even think to take any!)

Peach Barbecued Chicken

Ingredients:

• 3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or 5-6 chicken legs)
• kosher salt
• fresh-cracked pepper
• smoked paprika
• paprika
• garlic powder
• onion powder
• cumin
  
• pinch of cayenne pepper
• Peach Barbecue Sauce (recipe follows)
  

Directions:

1. Preheat your grill to medium-high heat.
   
2. Mix together equal amounts of the smoked paprika, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, and cumin (about a teaspoon each) with the cayenne pepper in a bowl. This is the dry rub that will cover each piece of chicken - if you don't think you'll have enough, double the recipe!
3. Season your chicken with salt and pepper on both sides, then rub the spice mixture onto both sides of the chicken.
4. Grill your chicken over medium-high heat, about three minutes per side. After your first flip, cover the just-grilled chicken with the peach barbecue sauce. Flip again and repeat.
5. Make sure you don't overcook your chicken; it'll dry out. One of the best things about barbecue chicken is the moist texture when it's cooked properly. When you can feel that the chicken in cooked through (and you can generally tell by how much give there is in the meat), take it off the grill. Also, make sure you let it rest awhile too; that'll keep the juices in the chicken, which also helps keep the meat moist.

Peach Barbecue Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1/2 red onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves (or one large clove), chopped
  
• olive oil
• pinch of kosher salt
• 2 tbsp. red wine vinegar
  
• 1 fresh peach, sliced or chopped
  
• 3 tbsp. light brown sugar
• 1 c. ketchup
• 2 tbsp. Dijon mustard
• 1 tbsp. dark molasses
• 2 tbsp. grade A light amber maple syrup (grade B syrup would be awesome, too!)
  
• 2 tbsp. peach jam
• 5-6 splashes of hot sauce (I like Frank's Redhot)

Directions:

1. In a small saucepan, sautee onions and garlic in olive oil, seasoning with a pinch of kosher salt. When the onions and garlic start to soften, add the red wine vinegar and reduce by about a third.
2. Once the vinegar has reduced, add the peach and brown sugar, stir, and cook, uncovered, allowing the peaches to caramelize and soften a bit.
3. When the sugar has dissolved and the peaches have softened, add the ketchup, mustard, molasses, maple syrup, peach jam, and hot sauce. Stir together until well-blended and bring to a simmer on low heat, allowing all the flavors to marry together. (This can take anywhere from five minutes to a half an hour.)
   
4. Strain the sauce into another bowl through a strainer getting out as much sauce as possible, while leaving the onions, peaches, and garlic in the strainer.
5. Make sure you reserve some sauce to pour over the top of the chicken (as you don't want to reuse sauce you've spread over semi-raw chicken). It really adds to the sweetness of the dish!

Serves: 3 or 4
Serving Suggestions: When we had this the other night, we had some fresh Indiana buttered sweet corn on the cob, which turned out to be a great accompaniment! However, ANY typical BBQ side would work with this chicken - potato salad, cole slaw, baked beans, cornbread, macaroni salad, or anything else you typically like to eat with BBQ! The sweetness of the sauce might be complimented by something sweet (like corn), tart (cucumber salad), or savory (baked beans). In terms of wine pairings (if you're into that stuff), nothing fits better with BBQ than a cold beer (summer ales would be best - Fat Tire, Oberon, etc.).

Eggs Benedict a la Foxy

Since school started up, I haven't had as much time for cooking as I might like. I've managed to do a few things (like an awesome BBQ chicken made with a homemade peach barbecue sauce), but one of the best times for me to get some cooking in is Saturday mornings when I wake up. (Sleeping in makes this meal "brunch" for me.) I love to eat breakfast, but I rarely have time to make it during the week... so Saturday is the BEST time to get the culinary juices flowing on the most important meal of the day!

NOTE: This is hardly a 'traditional' eggs benedict, but is just my own twist on a classic. To make a traditional benedict, replace two slices of bread with an English muffin and every couple of slices of bacon with Canadian bacon. However, I rarely have those ingredients on-hand, so I came up with this. Enjoy!

Eggs Benedict ala Foxy

Eggs Benedict
Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 1 tbsp. wine vinegar (I like the flavor of red wine.)
• kosher salt
• 4-8 strips of thick bacon
• 4 slices of wheat bread
• Holladaise Sauce (recipe below)
  
• parsley (for garnish)

Directions:

1. Put 2-3 inches of water in a large non-stick pot. Salt and bring the water to a simmer over medium heat. Once simmering, add vinegar to the water.
2. While waiting for your water to simmer, put your bacon in a nonstick skillet and cook until done. You'll want one or two pieces of bacon per piece of toast, so cook as many as it takes. (I go 'two-per', so I'd cook eight.)
   
3. Crack eggs into individual cups and gently lower them one at a time into the simmering water. Make sure you don't overcrowd the eggs in your pot!
4. Poach eggs in simmering water for 2-4 minutes until they reach your desired level of done-ness. (I like runny yolks, so I usually go 2-2.5 minutes.)
5. While eggs are poaching, pop your bread into the toaster and get it toasted to desired toasted-ness.
   
6. Remove eggs from the poach bath with a slotted spoon and place them on a texture-less rag or some paper towel in order to drain them.
7. Remove bacon from pan and drain the grease off on some paper towels. (Use different paper towels than the ones you drained the eggs on.)
8. Put two pieces of toast down on a plate. Put down one or two strips of bacon on each slice, then top with a poached egg. Drizzle the hollandaise over the whole thing and garnish with fresh-cracked pepper and some fresh parsley (if you want).
   

Hollandaise Sauce (recipe borrowed from Tyler Florence)
Ingredients:

• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tsp. dry mustard (I like to use Colman's)
• pinch of cayenne pepper
• 2 tbsp. water
• 1 c. butter, melted
• lemon juice
• salt & pepper to taste
  

Directions:

1. Combine yolks, mustard, cayenne, and water in the blender. Then, with the blender still running, slowly add the melted butter until completely combined.
2. Turn blender off, then taste and season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice as needed.
3. Keep warm while you poach your eggs. (I put it in a saucepan under low heat until the elements need to be brought together.)

Serves: 2 (or four if part of a breakfast smorgasbord)
Serving suggestions: This dish is certainly not a 'light' breakfast by any stretch of the imagination. A lot of the richness of this dish can be cut by serving it with some fresh fruit (in the summer, fresh peaches, melon, and berries work well; in the fall, apples, bananas, and grapes would be a good decision). Also, serving with orange juice is another great way to cut through the richness. If you're having this for brunch, you might replace the orange juice with a mimosa (if you're into that kinda thing).

Quotes of the Day

Sorry about my quite long absence. Perhaps one day, I will update with a lengthy post about my busy summer, though that seems unlikely. However, school is back in session, my computer still won't connect to the Internet and I'm left to do any and all updating from school (where I spend most of my time teaching).

Usually when I'm at school, I find myself doing a "Quote of the Day" for the freshmen, which I've found most of them generally ignore. I pull quotes off of a website called BrainyQuote.com and try to keep things interesting by having a different theme for every week. This week (and, if we're being honest, last week as well), I've been putting up quotes by Greek philosophers. Here are some of the ones I've used this week:

Thursday, August 13:
"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."
- Archilochus (c. 680-645 BC)

Friday, August 14:
"The unexamined life is not worth living."
- Socrates (469-399 BC)

Monday, August 17:
"A hero is born among a hundred, a wise man among a thousand, but an accomplished one might not be found even among a hundred thousand men."
- Plato (427-347 BC)

Tuesday, August 18:
"At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice, he is the worst."
- Aristotle (384-322 BC)

Wednesday, August 19:
"Those who have virtue in their mouths and neglect it in practice are like a harp which emits a sound pleasing to others while itself is insensible of music."
- Diogenes (412-323 BC)