NORMAL CHEF: Honey Balsamic Chicken

• 1/4 cup balsamic dressing
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup baked brown sugar, 
• 2 T. soy sauce
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 # chicken thighs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Take the first 5 ingredients and mix together and place the chicken in the marinade and let it set for up to 1 hour. Remove chicken from marinade and place on a greased cookie sheet and bake in oven for 45 minutes or until thermometer reaches 165 degrees. Turn oven up to broil, and do not move oven rack leave in the center position, and broil for 5 minutes to crisp up the skin. When finished you will have a nice sticky, sweet and savory piece of chicken.

This dish can also be made on a BBQ grill, just watch for flare ups because of the sugar in the marinade.If you choose to do that, use an indirect heat for it. Indirect heat is where you have the coals/ propane on one side of the grill and the meat on the other, thus eliminating the fear of a flare up. I personally never cook with indirect heat, I don’t like it, and prefer to have my food over the heat source.

Remember, it is summer time, don’t be afraid to try new things on the grill, a beautiful light dessert is a piece of grilled pound cake, served with some grilled fruit, like peaches or pineapple. You can brush your fruit with a combination of brown sugar and balsamic vinegar and grill them to just to warm them or grill them and cook all the way through. So go ahead and try this with your chicken for dinner and see what you think. After all, its just food.

Natilie Cavnar is a cooking fanatic who loves to try new recipes, and create some of her own, ask her what you want at thenormalchef@gmail.com.