It didn't taste like Chicken! ;D

My husband and I have a lot of things in common, among them is the inability to "Do" Chicken.  It seems that no matter what we do, Chicken always seems to taste like Chicken which can become extremely tiresome!  For whatever reason, we were on the same wavelength again the other day and both started thinking how good some BBQ dark meat would taste.  (Odd but OK!?!?!)  Let's face it...after years of the the dietary world shoving the glory of the breast in our face, there is only so much breast a person can take!  (Insert 12 year old boy joke here.) 

We like the dark meat.  A little higher in fat content and a little richer in taste, it is, for us, the "do-able" part of the feathered fowl.  So I hit up Google.  The recipe that kept coming back as the bomb was from Son of Grok.  I will say, I made a couple of modifications to it.  Personally, we threw in a little sweetner in the form of Honey and I have been using powdered garlic lately for my spices.  Call it lazy but with the frequency of which I am making my Jerky seasonings for my Cave Girl Jerky, I am all about efficiency when it comes to making sauces lately.  This also brings to point my *absolute*love* of my mini-crockpot.  It's not the tiny one that only holds a cup but I think it holds 1 quart of liquid.  I inherited it from a girlfriend.  She brought it over with some yummy stuff in it.  After much wine she forgot it at the house.   We made several attempts to get it back to her, both with her coming over (again too much wine.) And me going over to visit her...again...wine.  Well, she eventually told me to hold onto it.  (Perhaps again that came with much wine.)  Either way - it is a Cave Girl's Best Friend. . . even more so than my stand mixer or my food processor.  I *highly* recommend the 1 quart Crockpot.  Anyway - on to the chicken!

Ingredients:
- 1 6oz can tomato paste - Costco has great organic tomato paste for like $6/box!
- 1 1/2 cups beef stock
- 6 tsp granulated Garlic
- 1 1/2 TBSP onion powder
- 2 TBSP mustard - I used stone ground
- 2 TBSP apple cider vinegar
- 1 TBSP Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 2 TBSP chili powder

- 1/2 cup honey or maple syrup or a mix of the two*

Put all the ingredients in your handy dandy 1 qt crockpot, stir it up, plug it in and go run you errands.  Come back and you will have some wonderful BBQ sauce waiting.  

-OR-

Put all the ingredients in your sauce pan and stir occasionally for30-? minutes until it reaches the intensity and consistency you want.  (See why I love the Crockpot? ;)

Now soak, slather, smother your chicken and throw them on the grill!! YUMMERS!!!

Regarding modifications, do what works for you and don't feel bad if what works for you is not what works for your neighbor (IMHO).  We are all unique and that is awesome!  So if you want to cut out the sweetener, go for it.  The original Son of Grok Recipe has no sweetener in it.   We (hubby and I) taste tested that and it was a bit like spaghetti sauce.  We needed a little more sweet with our spice to make that right combination.   Now recently, and I still need to investigate this, one of our coaches told me she uses coconut sugar which is dried coonut I guess?  She said it's very sweet and lower than anything on the glycemic index.  I'm down to try that but need to check with her for more details next time I see her.  Some variations I have seen have seen use Tamari but no sweetener - Tamari is a gluten free soy derived sauce.  I say, whatever's clever.  Do what works for you.

So it seems I have gotten long winded again.   We had a great dinner.  On the way home, stopped by the fruit truck on the side of the road and got an amazing Watermelon and Cantaloupe for a total of $3!  A litte of my fave tomato, pesto and walnut salad and voila!  Dinner was served and I am beyond satiated!