Grilled Chicken with Blackberry Barbecue Sauce

If romantic comedies have taught us anything it's that Paul Rudd will continue to be in every movie ever made and that perfect couples exist and they'll eventually end up together, even if it takes some work. 

Blackberries and barbecue sauce are that perfect couple. They were meant to be together.

Sure, blackberries seem like a perfect match for pies and tarts, but no. We beg to differ. So, here it is: the unlikely love story between blackberries and barbecue sauce. 

Blackberries can be prickly, but their sweetness eventually wins almost everyone over. Meanwhile, barbecue sauce is more of a wildcard - it can be sweet, spicy, salty, or even bitter. When these two met, they both ordered the same Frappuccino while in line at Starbucks; barbecue sauce knew it wanted blackberries inside of it (things just got real saucy!). But the blackberries were reluctant at first, mainly because their parents always assumed they would end up with a nice pastry. After barbecue sauce almost lost blackberries to a cocktail, they decided to add a little heat and spice to their relationship, and become more than just work colleagues. In time they discovered what they had together was true love. They eventually got married and hired a pretty good photographer for their wedding and ended up having a beautiful chicken breast together. 

There you have it kids, true love always wins in the end, except in real life where everything usually falls apart and it's more like the ending of Wet Hot American Summer.

Blackberry Barbecue Sauce

• 1/4 cup Blackberries
• 1 clove Garlic minced
• 1/3 cup diced Red Onion
• 2 tablespoons Butter
• 1/4 cup Brown Sugar
• 1/4 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
• 3 Tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 Tablespoon Ketchup
• 3 teaspoons ground Dry Mustard Seeds
• 1 teaspoon Chile Pepper
• 1 teaspoon Pepper flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground Pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon Garlic Salt

1. Heat the butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Once the butter is melted add the garlic and onions. Occasionally stir the onions and garlic until they start to caramelize. Stir in the brown sugar and keep occasionally stirring to avoid burning for about 3 minutes. 
2. Stir in the blackberries and don't be afraid to mush them up, I mean they're going to get pureed later. Stir in the all the dry spices, then add the ketchup, vinegar, and worcestershire sauce.
3. Simmer over medium heat for another 5 minutes, while stirring occasionally. Puree with a hand blender until smooth. Serve over chicken or cornbread or literally anything you want to make more delicious.

Grilled Chicken Breasts

• Chicken
• Blackberry Barbecue sauce

1. Coat the chicken in a layer of the sauce. Grill it until properly cooked. That's it. 

Corn Bread

• 11/4 cup Cornmeal
• 1/4 cup Flour
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1 tablespoon Sugar
• 3 teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 3 Tablespoons Canola Oil
• 3/4 cup Milk
• 2 Eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 375°. Sift all the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Stir in the milk,  and eggs. 
2. Pour into an 8-inch round baking pan and cook for 15 or until golden brown.

By the way, serving the chicken on a bed of dandelion greens adds a nice splash of color to the plate. Enjoy! All photos by Katy Weaver

Grilled Lamb

When start your life you have no idea who will enter it or who will leave it. Honestly when you start off life as a baby the only things you're thinking about are; "I'm hungry," "There's no way I'm cleaning up the mess I just made in my diaper," and "I'm only going to retain, at the very most, blurry shapes from this period of my life, so why am I having such complex thoughts?" The point I'm eventually going to make is that sometimes in life you meet cool people and on rarer occasions you get to work with those people. 

That's what happened with this post. See that fancy looking ice cream up above? Well it just so happened Katy's good friend Michelle has a dessert blog, called More Chocolate! So, we decided it would be a great idea to work on a post together. 

We figured since it is summer that it's only natural that we should grill something. I decided to grill up some lamb and Michelle grilled up some peaches to go with her homemade vanilla ice cream, which you can find on her blog here. 

Grilled Lamb Chops with Peach Balsamic Sauce

Serves 3-4 people

• 1 rack of lamb or 8 chops

Marinade:

• 1/4 cup Balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 cup Port
• 1 Lemon juiced
•  Fresh Thyme
• 1 teaspoon Olive Oil
• 1/2 cup Water
• 1/2 teaspoon Kosher Salt

1. Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. If you purchased a rack of lamb because that's all the store had, slice the rack into chops. Add the chops to the marinade and let sit for 30 minutes in the fridge.
2. Fire up that grill. Once it's hot enough grill the chops for 3-5 minutes depending on the heat of your grill, then flip and cook the other side for 2 minutes or just long enough to get some grill marks on it. Plate and serve with this other stuff that's featured below, and not just because I took the time to write all of it out.

Peach Balsamic Sauce

• Balsamic Vinegar
• Peaches Peeled and diced
• Lemon Juice
• Lemon Zest
• Port
• Salt
• Pepper
• Flour

1. In a small sauce pan add everything listed except the flour and heat over high until it reaches a boil. Once the sauce reaches a boiling point reduce the heat to medium and let simmer for 20 minutes. Use a hand blender to pulverize those peach pieces into a sauce like consistency.
2. Stir in the flour and let the sauce thicken. Serve over the grilled lamb or really anything you want - lamb, burgers, ice cream, Cheetos.

Purple Cauliflower Basil Purée

• 1 head Purple Cauliflower
• 3 Tablespoons Greek Yogurt
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• 1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
• 5 large Fresh Basil Leaves shredded

1. Break the cauliflower head into pieces and remove the large steam. Steam the cauliflower for 7 minutes or until it's slightly soft. 
2. Drain the purple Kool-Aid-like water from the pan and add the yogurt, oil, salt and basil to the cauliflower. Use a food processor or a hand blender to blend into a paste-like consistency. Serve as a side.

Grilled Onion

• 1 large Onion peeled and halved
• 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
• 2 pinches of Salt

1. Drizzle oil over onion.
2. Sprinkle salt over onion.
3. Grill for 15 min on side of grill where the coals aren't too hot.
4. Slice thinly.

All wood engraving depicting images of my food by Katy Weaver. And don't forget to check out Michelle's post for dessert! 

Carne Asada Tacos & Sangria

Sometimes in life you have to strip down, whether it's going skinny dipping, refinishing hardwood furniture or simplifying a dish. Instead of doing an infusion or adding some interesting ingredient I decided simplicity would be the best route to take.

Even if it's slightly cold and cloudy, eat this meal outside the comfort of your dining room that's cooled with centralized air and set up the picnic table. Oh you live in an apartment? Open a window while you eat, it's summer, enjoy the nice weather while it's here.

Sangria

Yields almost enough to forget your troubles

• 1 bottle Red Wine opened (I went with the cheapest merlot I could find)
• 2 liters of Ginger Ale
• 1 Orange sliced
• 1 Lemon sliced
• 2 Limes sliced
• 1 Apple sliced
• 1 Peach sliced
• 1 shot Triple Sec 
• 2 shots of White whiskey

1. Cut up the fruit and add everything to whatever samovar you have laying around.
2. Quick note: I used white whiskey, because it was laying around. Bourbon works just as well.
3. Stir it up a bit and serve.

Homemade Chips & Salsa

Chips

• 6 Corn Tortillas
• Olive Oil
• Salt

Salsa

• 4 Tomatoes diced
• 3/4 medium sized Onion diced
• 2 tablespoons of minced Garlic
• 2 Jalapeños diced  
• 1 Lime juiced
• 2 small sprigs of Fresh Parsley finely chopped
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt
• 1/4 teaspoon Pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon Caribbean Jerk Seasoning

1. Pour enough olive oil into a skillet to make a shallow pool, heat over medium. Cook the pieces of tortilla until golden brown on each side. Flip as necessary. This is a very fast process, so keep an eye on them. To drain, place the chips on a cooling rack over paper towels. 
2. Make the salsa by adding all the cut-up vegetables in a medium-sized bowl along with the spices, stir until well mixed.

Carne Asada Taco

Serves two very hungry people

• 1 lbs. Skirt Steak
• 1 teaspoon Olive Oil
• a pinch of Salt
• 2 Jalapeños
• 4 Green Onions
• 6 Corn Tortilla
• Hot sauce

1. Rev up your grill. 
2. To get the most out of your meat, pound it. Pounding your meat will make it flatter and therefor it will have more surface area, which will allow it cook faster, resulting in a more tender piece of steak. Lay some plastic wrap on the kitchen counter, enough to span the length of the steak strips. Lay another layer of wrap over top. You can use anything heavy to pound the meat, even a triple sec bottle.
3. Once the steak is flattened, but not pulverized, throw it in a mixing bowl and drizzle the olive oil over top and add the salt. Massage the oil and salt into the steak with your hands. Yes your hands, it won't kill you, unless your allergic to beef. And if you are allergic to beef, why the hell are you making these tacos?
4. Add the steak, onions and jalapeños to the grill. Flip the onions and the peppers as needed to make sure they don't burn. Only cook the steak a few minutes on each side, keep an eye on it so it doesn't burn.
5. Once the vegetables are grilled and the steak is done (and yes that means it's still a little pink on the inside), let the steak sit for 10 minutes. Cut into strips and place on warm corn tortillas with the salsa and hot sauce. Serve with chips & salsa, sour cream and sangria.

Summer is all about simplicity isn't it? It's the season of taking some time off and spending time in the wilderness away from everything that's complex and stressful. Food should be simple too, especially summer fare. Be sure to read next week's post, I'm making something crazy and elaborate.

All these wonderfully colorful photos by Katy Weaver