Honey Spice Chicken Thighs

By Paul Briand

I had some chicken thighs in the fridge, and did an online search on how I might prepare them.

Here was the most interesting of what I saw: Honey Spice Chicken Thighs from the BudgetBytes blog.

I did not add the heat of the cayenne as indicated, bowing to my wife’s palate, which tends toward less heat than I might normally add.

What I liked about this blog was how it broke the meal down by ingredient to cost. In total, according to its calculations, this meal cost a total of $5.13

Ingredients
8 chicken thighs (about 4 pounds worth)
1/3 cup honey
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 tablespoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon salt

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and in a small bowl, combine everything except the chicken thighs until combined;
2. Remove the skin from the chicken thighs if desired. Place the chicken thighs either on a roasting pan or a baking sheet covered with foil;
3. Brush the honey spice mixture over the surface of the chicken thighs, using about half of the total honey mixture;
4. Roast thighs for about 20 minutes;
5. Remove thighs from oven and brush on remaining honey spice mixture;
6. Return chicken to oven and roast for another 20 minutes. Serve hot.

Click here for recipe card.

Balsamic Roasted Brussels Sprouts

By Paul Briand

The challenge of cooking Brussels sprouts is to prepare them in such a way that they don’t taste like Brussels sprouts.

I have not been a big fan of these miniature cabbage look-alikes, despite their abundance of vitamin A, vitamin C, folic acid and dietary fiber. I just don’t think they taste very good, given the old school tendency of boil-and-serve.

So my son David had me try his recipe, which endeavors to transform the taste of the sprouts with the sour/sweet interplay of balsamic vinegar and honey. It was, indeed, a transformative experience.

David eyeballs a lot of his proportions, so we tried to approximate measures here as best we could. This recipe serves two.

Ingredients
10 ounces of Brussels sprouts
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
Salt and pepper

Directions
1. Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees;
2.Prepare a baking dish with a coating of olive oil;
3. Trim the nubs of the sprouts and cut each sprout in half lengthwise;
4. Arrange sprouts cut side down in baking dish;
5. Splash vinegar over the sprouts, making sure each sprout gets a splash;
6. Drizzle honey over each of the sprouts;
7. Add salt and pepper to taste;
8. Bake for 30 minutes or until the bottoms have browned and the tops have caramelized.

Click here for recipe card.

Sticky Lemon Chicken

By Paul Briand

I went trawling this week for some recipes on the BBC Good Food web site, where I’ve had some good luck in the past.

This time I netted this Sticky Lemon Chicken.

The flavor of this dish was disproportionate to the effort. In other words, you get a lot of flavor from this dish without a lot of ingredients and/or cooking time.

Ingredients
4 chicken breast fillets with skin, about 5 ounces each
1 large lemon
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves or a generous sprinkling of dried
1½ tablespoons honey

Directions
1. Preheat oven broiler to high and lightly oil a shallow heatproof dish;
2. Put the chicken in the dish, skin side down, and season with salt and pepper. Grill for 5 minutes. While the chicken is grilling, cut four thin slices from
the lemon;
3. Turn the chicken fillets over and put a slice of lemon on top of each one;
4. Sprinkle over the thyme and a little more seasoning, then drizzle with the honey;
5. Squeeze over the juice from the remaining lemon;
6. Return to the grill for 10 minutes more, until the chicken is golden and cooked all the way through.

You can serve the chicken and the sticky juices with rice or potatoes.

Click here for recipe card.