BBQ Apple Chicken

On more than one occasion I’ve had a freezer of chicken breasts and had to figure out what to do with them. They’re a standard item on my grocery list but I don’t always know what I’m going to make when I buy them. There’s about a bazillion possible ways to prepare a chicken breast, but I often suffer from dinner block, a common condition known to housewives resulting from too much dinner cooking and not enough creativity. 

I’m not one of those girls who blindly reaches into the fridge or pantry and makes something delicious with whatever comes out. I like recipes and while I don’t always follow them faithfully, I’d be lost without them. But earlier this year I surprised myself; I came up with something!

Todd and I were knew to life-on-our-own here in South Africa, and while at the grocery store one day we stumbled upon a brand of meat rubs. The brand was Nando’s,  a restaurant specializing in chicken meals common in South Africa as well as the UK and Australia (though I think I heard it’s Portuguese?). Anyway, we had heard great things about the restaurant but hand’t gotten around to trying it. In lieu of actually visiting the restaurant itself we picked out a rub and thought we’d give it a go for dinner one night. 

The rub is BBQ “Peri-Peri,” peri-peri basically being code for SPICY! This was before I knew that in South Africa, peri-peri is typically beyond my spice tolerance (which I used to think was pretty good). This particular rub isn’t overkill, but it still has a kick!

But let’s get back to the birth of my chicken breast epiphany. I bought the rub with the intention of “rubbing” it onto chicken, but then what? Was that going to cut it? While I was sure it would have some nice flavor I was also pretty sure it would be dry, and I do not enjoy dry chicken. I needed something to help it stay moist, but I didn’t want to actually marinade it. What to do, what to do…

And then it came to me: apples. 

I had heard of cooking apples with a pork roast so apples with chicken couldn’t be horrible. Strange,  but not horrible. I cut up an apple and laid the slices on top of the chicken, hoping it would magically do the trick and that Todd wouldn’t think I’d lost it. Just to be safe, I’d also stuffed his with cheese (can you tell I was really reaching? BBQ and cheese…what on earth?). He pretty much loves cheese. It was my insurance policy on the meal.

When the timer dinged and the moment of truth was upon me, I was pleased :) Todd liked my little concoction so well, he said he wouldn’t mind having it often. It became one of his favorite ways we do chicken, as a matter of fact. Who knew?! I think baking the chicken in our little convection oven went a long way in helping it stay moist, so if you have a small family and a toaster oven, consider baking a few chicken breasts in that! 

Since it’s often proven successful at our house, I thought it was time to share it with yours, just in case you get a case of dinner block sometime ;) 

BBQ Apple Chicken

-Preheat Oven to 375 or 350, wherever you would normally cook chicken. 

-Take thawed chicken breasts and coat them in a BBQ rub or seasoning. While I doubt you can get Nando’s in the States, it looks like Wal-Mart carries a McCormick BBQ rub, but any one will do. 

-After coating chicken breasts, set in baking dish. Place apple slices along the top, either flat, or slightly stacked (as shown in picture). I recommend using a bigger apple than what I had on hand.

-Bake for 25-30 minutes,  or just until done. Don’t let them dry out on you! 

That’s it! Simple? Extremely. Now go use up those chicken breasts you’ve been meaning to cook :) 

A Quilt for Ty

This is a dream come true. I have made a quilt!

Actually, we have made a quilt. This was definitely a joint venture and I can't imagine doing it without Todd! I was clueless in the beginning. I didn't fully understand the pattern I found, was hopeless at making conversions (remember, we're on the metric system here and the pattern was in the imperial system), and didn't know the first thing about using a sewing machine.

Thankfully, Todd could fill in my gaps (a.k.a., giant gaping holes) and we had such a good time doing this project together! We picked out our fabric, Todd did the calculating and cutting, we both ironed and sewed and in the end could really say that we had done it :)

My favorite part of the actual sewing process was hand-stitching the binding onto the backing of the quilt. It only took me about 6 hours (not all at once) from start to finish. I also really liked learning how to use a sewing machine, and while those things are fantastic for actually getting things done, using one isn't the relaxing part of the process that hand-stitching is.

When I showed Todd the tutorial for the confetti quilt I'd found on Pinterest (which you can view here at Bijou Lovely) that I wanted to make for Ty, I asked him to pick out what colors he would like. He went with a nautical color scheme and I was happy about that :) While Ty is a boy, I didn't want to do something overly boyish or babyish for his quilt. I love the beach so nautical is perfect!

Here are the patterns we chose for the 56 circles, 7 of each pattern:

This one is the wave piece...it was pretty much perfect :)

This one made me think of the bottom of a shallow creek bed. Can you imagine you're looking at cool water dancing over brown and copper pebbles?

Here's some green-blue water, kind of like what you'd see if you visited the gulf.

And here's our deep sea representative.

This one looks more like the surface of a pool,  so blue and refreshing! Maybe there's an ocean somewhere that looks like this...

And this is obviously sand :) I liked the shimmery gold specks.

Technically, this is also a "sand" piece, but we mostly chose it for the pattern.

Here's the whole gang, complimenting each other beautifully:

We were off a little in our dimensions, so our quilt turned out a bit smaller than the one in the tutorial we followed. But we're still quite pleased :)

Oh, and here're some samples from the backing fabric:

While the overall product did turn out well, it is certainly handmade by beginner quilters. I made more than a few blunders with the sewing machine, and there's a place in my binding stitching that leaves a lot to be desired. I guess that just adds to the homemade-ness of it.

This was such a fun, rewarding project, and I'd definitely be up for making more...so long as Todd would be up for another joint venture :) I'm not quite ready to tackle it single-handedly.