Trial and Error

Did some trial and error with the entree and dessert for tonight's dinner.

The barbecue sauce on the chicken thighs was the success part. Well, yeah, so was the corn, but how hard is it to open a can, empty it into a sauce pan and heat it?

The sauce came from a recipe called bakingbites.com, but the last time I tried to navigate to that site my anti-virus software told me it had fended off an attempted attack on my computer, so I won't publish the link.

Here's the recipe:

1/2 cup ketchup

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup honey

1 1/2 tablespoons chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

1 1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp salt, or to taste

pinch ground pepper, or to taste

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and blend until very smooth.

I put 4 chicken thighs in a casserole pan I'd sprayed with olive oil spray and poured the bbq sauce over them. Put that in the oven for an hour at 350, and they came out perfectly!

As for the side, it was my executive (chef) decision to have corn... it was what I was in the mood to have!

I attempted a duo of desserts, and this is the "error" part of the trial and error title. I'm not too happy about the way either of them turned out.

Since I've now found a couple sources for the tamarind concentrate (haven't found paste, but figured out how to use the concentrate) I decided to use some of it to make a granita. I thought about a sorbet, but really wanted it light in texture too. Granita sounded right.

I mixed a cup and a third of the concentrate with a quart of water, and added about a half cup of sugar. Froze that, forgetting to stir it every hour to keep it from getting solid. So it was real solid when I went to use it after eating the main course. I "shredded" it with a fork, and scooped up the loose ice crystals.

It was refreshing, but I'm not certain how much a person who's not used to the flavor could eat of it. It's definitely an acquired taste.

The other dessert was to make a vanilla-coconut frozen yogurt. I had just the right amount (3 cups) of vanilla lowfat Greek-style yogurt. I added 3/4 cup of Splenda, 1 tsp vanilla flavoring (if I'd had coconut extract, I'd have used that) and 1/2 cup of toasted coconut to the yogurt and chilled it, then churned it in my ice cream machine.

The consistency is good. The coconut is musted, and I think the Splenda is leaving an aftertaste I don't care for. At least it is definitely soothing (as was the tamarind granita) after that palate-firing barbecue sauce!