Come Monday, It'll Be Alright

Ellie's Chicken With Mango Barbecue Sauce

At least, I hope to fully redeem myself come Monday. Tonight's dinner was the first meal I've made from one of my latest new-to-me cookbooks. I've been reading Ellie Krieger's "The Food You Crave" for a couple of days now, but I didn't have all of the ingredients to make any of her tasty - and healthy! - meals until today. I asked the husband this morning what he thought about chicken marinated in a mango barbecue sauce, and he agreed it sounded interesting. I was pretty excited he was willing to try this because I love mangos, so, naturally, I'd like him to love them, too. Also, we've never had anything quite like this before; I didn't think it'd hurt him to step out of him comfort zone a little bit. It wasn't like I asked him to eat tofu or anything.

I heated the olive oil and added the pepper, onion, spices, molasses, red wine vinegar, molasses, Worcestershire sauce, lime juice and tomato sauce. Then, I transferred the sauce to my blender and was supposed to add the chopped mangos and jalapenos. Well, I added in the mangos, but where were my jalapenos? Husband! Where are the jalapenos we bought today? I looked all over the kitchen, but I didn't have all night. I had to get the chicken marinating. I opened a small can of mild chilies and threw them in instead. (Of course, as soon as I had the sauce blending, the husband found the jalapenos in the back seat of the car.)

I knew as soon as the chicken was marinating that it wasn't pretty. The sauce was a bit thicker than I imagined, but that was nothing to complain about. And it was a little on the sweet side, so I threw a few dashes of red pepper in to keep the husband happy. Overall, it tasted fine, but it wasn't that pleasant to look at. Oh, well. I just shrugged my shoulders and threw it in the fridge. 

An hour later, the husband grilled it up, and we sat down to eat. I thought the chicken was a success, albeit an ugly success. And the husband didn't necessarily disagree. I had put the remaining barbecue sauce in the fridge (covered, in a separate bowl) while the chicken was marinating, and we both agreed that was a little weird. I think room-temp sauce would have been better. 

Slowly but surely, I'm convinced, I'm on the road to dinner redemption. Now if I could only decide what to make for tomorrow's Meatless Monday, we'll be set. Hey, husband, what do you think about root vegetable creole?