BBQ Chicken and Yogurt Potato Salad

I'm finally posting my super-amazing BBQ chicken "recipe." It starts with a marinade that I then boil down to make a sauce. A stroke of pure genius had me serving it with my yogurt potato salad and some broccoli that I roasted on the grill (just drizzle some olive oil over some broccoli and add some smashed garlic cloves, enclose in a foil pouch and ignore on the grill while the chicken cooks... and don't forget to squeeze half a lemon on it before serving like I did!).

Sorry the picture isn't so great... I forgot to snap one while the food was still in the kitchen where the good lighting is.

BBQ Chicken
Marinade/Sauce
Apple cider vinegar
Molasses
Brown sugar
Ketchup
Soy Sauce
Crushed red pepper flakes
Black peppercorns
Garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
Onion powder

Put these things into a very large ziploc bag and mix well. The proportions are up to you. I use about 4 cups of vinegar as the base. This is a tangy NC-inspired marinade/sauce. I also use quite a lot of the red pepper flakes so it's pretty spicy.

Once you've got the chicken on the grill, pour the leftover marinade into a saucepan and bring it to a boil. Turn down the heat and simmer it for a while, then strain it into a serving apparatus (I like using a squeeze bottle).

Chicken
A bunch of chicken, with bones and skin (I did a "Family Pack" of 4 drumsticks and 2 breasts)
Marinade from above
About 1 C applewood chips, soaked for 15 minutes

Marinate the chicken for at least 4 hours, letting it come to room temperature for no more than 2 hours before grilling. Get your grill going at a nice low steady heat. Put the applewood chips in a little foil bowl and stick that on the coals. If you have a gas grill, I don't know what you are supposed to do with wood chips, sorry. Wait a few minutes until the wood chips start to smoke. Pull the chicken out of the marinade and place it on the grill, skin-side down. Grill breasts first, since they take the longest (they will need about a 10-minute head start depending on size). Grill the chicken for a few minutes and flip. Move the chicken around the grill to get desired amount of char. Pull the chicken off once the thickest parts reach 160°F and let it rest for about 5 minutes to get up to 165°F, which is the temperature recommended for chicken.

Yogurt Potato Salad
2 lb red potatoes, cut into 1-inch pieces (I ended up with 30 oz after trimming off some weird parts)
1-1/2 T olive oil
1 medium shallot, diced
1 red bell pepper, large-diced
2 large or 4 small carrots, thinly sliced (cut large ones in half lengthwise)
1 C plain yogurt (Greek or regular, but Greek will make a thicker dressing)
Red wine vinegar to taste
1/2 t onion powder
1/2 t garlic powder
Salt and pepper

Put the potatoes in a pot and cover them with water. Drain them, then cover them with water again. Bring to a boil and cook the potatoes just until tender. It only takes a few minutes when the pieces are so small. Be careful not to overcook them! Drain the potatoes and then place back in the pot with the lid on so they absorb the last bit of moisture. If after a few minutes, they're still pretty damp, turn on a little heat. Very dry potatoes make the best salad. Pour the potatoes into a very large bowl and toss them with the olive oil. Stir in the veggies, then mix together the rest of the ingredients in a separate bowl before mixing into the salad. Refrigerate for a couple of hours, or better yet, overnight. If you want, add some chopped fresh herbs, like chives or flat-leaf parsley.

Potato salad Serves 6.

Grilled Salmon with Lentils and Chard

So, I've been watching Food Network again. I have come to like Anne Burrell's show, "Secrets of a Restaurant Chef." The other day, I watched her make some grilled salmon with meyer lemon compound butter and some stew-y lentil thing and I don't remember what else. Since I had some sockeye salmon in the freezer and lentils on the shelf, I decided to do a similar thing, but my own way of course. Oh and I had gotten a bag of "Kaleidoscope Chard" from TJs, which I thought would compliment the rest of the things. It did.

Lentils
Cooking Liquid
A couple of celery stalks, in large pieces
A couple of carrots, in large pieces
An onion or a couple of shallots, in large pieces
A couple of cloves of garlic, lightly smashed and peeled
White wine to taste
A few cups of water
1/2 cup green lentils, rinsed and picked through
Salt to taste

Lentils
1 T olive oil
1/4 C minced carrot
1/4 C minced celery (I used some of the leaves too, which was nice)
1 T minced shallot
1 clove garlic, minced
About 1/4 C lentil cooking liquid
Salt and pepper to taste

Start the lentils first because they have to cook for about 30 minutes. Put all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for about 30 minutes, until the lentils are tender. Note: Anne used fennel, too, which would be nice, but I didn't have any.

Once the lentils are tender, pull out the big chunks of stuff and strain the lentils, reserving some of the cooking liquid. (At this point, I started cooking the salmon and chard.)

Heat the olive oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Add the carrot and cook for about 30 seconds because they take longer than the rest of the vegetables. Add the other vegetables and cook for about 1 minute, until they start to soften. Add the lentils and stir, turning the heat to low. If the lentils start to dry out, add some of the cooking liquid. Simmer for about 5 minutes. These lentils were amazing. Anne put bacon in hers, which is probably a good idea, too, but all my bacon got cooked that morning!

Compound Butter
2-4 T softened butter
Zest of 1 blood orange or citrus fruit of your choice
Crushed green peppercorns (I would have used pink if I'd had them)
Chopped fresh herbs if you have them
Salt to taste

Stir everything together until well-incorporated and keep at room temperature if you're going to use it within a couple of hours. Otherwise, refrigerate.

Salmon
2 salmon fillets (mine were about 1/3 lb each)
Salt and pepper
olive oil
Juice of the blood orange or citrus you zested for the butter

Let the salmon fillets come to room temperature, skin-side up so the skin dries out (the dry skin before cooking is one of Anne's seemingly favorite tricks for crispy fish skin). Get your grill going, be it charcoal or gas, to a medium-ish heat. Sprinkle the skin-side of the fillets with salt and pepper and then spray or drizzle with olive oil. Place the salmon skin-side down and grill for 4-6 minutes. Season the other side of the fillets and then flip, cooking to desired doneness (usually about 8 minutes per inch of thickness). Give the fillets a spritz with the citrus juice, and then top with desired amount of compound butter.

Chard
1 T olive oil
1 clove garlic, smashed and peeled
1 big bunch or bag of rainbow chard
Salt and pepper to taste
Blood orange or other citrus juice

Heat the olive oil and garlic in a large pan (I used my wok to be able to hold all the chard) over medium heat. Add the chard, salt, and pepper and cook down for about a minute, tossing constantly. Remove from heat and place a lid over the chard. Let it steam for about 5 minutes to finish. Remove the garlic and spritz with citrus juice.

Serves 2.

Grilled Marinated Chicken and Stuff

This chicken was SOO good. I apologize for not having pictures of the meal once completed (though you do get bonus leftovers pics), but it actually wasn't terribly pretty. I was craving fajitas, but didn't want to cut up a bunch of chicken or cook indoors, so I decided to leave the chicken breasts intact, marinate them, and make my husband grill them!

Marinade:
orange juice
soy sauce
white vinegar
sunflower oil (just a touch)
garlic powder
ground cumin
ground coriander seed
cayenne pepper
black pepper

Place all ingredients in whatever proportion you want into a large zipper bag and mix it around a bit. Add in some boneless, skinless chicken breasts and refrigerate for at least 6 hours. You could use lime juice instead of orange, but I needed to use up some orange juice that I bought for my dad since we don't drink it.

Accompaniments:
bell pepper, cut into strips
jalapeño pepper, seeded and cut into strips
yellow onion, sliced
olive oil spray
salt & pepper
can of black beans
shredded Mexican cheese blend (I bought a light blend and can't tell any difference)
sliced avocado
tortillas

Place the veggies on a large sheet of aluminum foil that has been sprayed with olive oil, then spray the veggies. Sprinkle salt and pepper over them and toss. Seal up the foil to make a pouch for grillin'.

Grill the chicken and veggie pouch over high flame. We like our meat kind of charred and our veggies caramelized. Make sure you flip everything at some point. Cook the chicken until an instant-read thermometer registers at least 160° F, then let it rest for 5 minutes while you heat up the beans and tortillas. Note: I heat tortillas directly over the flame on my gas stove. Slice up the chicken and plate it with the grilled veggies, beans topped with shredded cheese, avocado, and tortilla.

Nutrition info:

Bonus: Leftovers!

Poor little (big, actually) blurry chicken breast

In a very large bowl, I have:
2 C butter lettuce
2 C baby spinach
1/4 C light shredded Mexican cheese blend
1/2 C shredded carrot
1/2 a red bell pepper, sliced
6 oz leftover chicken breast, cubed

Avocado ranch dressing:
1/2 an avocado, mashed
1 T Greek yogurt
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/2 t red wine vinegar
1/2 t Buttermilk Ranch Seasoning from Penzey's Spices.