Will always be a Texas gal

So, I've been randomly missing Texas lately. Mostly because I haven't been to Texas in a while and because I'm missing Tex/Mex, good barbecue and, of course, cold, fresh Shiner.

In turn, I decided to try to make homemade barbecue sauce. I found a pretty awesome recipe in a cookbook that we own. This was my first time working with molasses, which I found rather odd. They are so thick, but somehow they flow really easily (unlike syrup/ketchup/other viscous condiments/etc.). Besides that, the rest of the ingredients were pretty straight forward.

Then came the chicken. I found this rather interesting. Essentially, you create a marinade (we left ours in there for about two hours) that consisted of sherry vinegar, garlic, chopped onions, lemon juice and a bay leaf. We just set the chicken in there and threw it in the fridge. While that was marinading, we went back downstairs to start watching Emperor's New Groove. For some reason, I was really craving watching that absolutely amazing animated feature.

Once we finished the marinade, we sprayed the grill with this really need Weber grill non-stick spray (I know that sounds like an advertisement, but that stuff really does work. Supposedly, it's the only cooking spray that you can spray over an open flame.) So, David played grill master as I tried to tend to the barbecue sauce. And, trust me, it was a pretty crazy sauce.

I learned a few lessons during my foray into homemade barbecue sauce. First off, barbecue sauce takes a very long time to reduce on the stovetop (about 30 minutes at high-altitude, so I would assume it would take closer to 20-25 at sea level). Secondly, when you simmer a tomato-based sauce, it is well advised to wear an apron. And lastly, even if you wear an apron, don't think that's going to exempt your white pajama top to get stained by tomato sauce splatter. I measured and the splatter went up to two feet away. I'm guessing I might need to invest in a splatter screen next major holiday.

Overall, after brushing the BBQ sauce on the chicken during the last 15 minutes of the grilling, I would say the chicken was an immense success. It was juicy, had a kick and delicious. And with our leftover guacamole from our progressive dinner on Sunday, it formed quite the meal. I would say it was great and might be part of the kitchen rotation in the Shiff/Schexnayder meal plan.