Monday, May 10, 2010

a summer sandwich recipe

My friend Amie, of {My Retro Kitchen} is a wonderful cook.
 
The first time she ever had me over for lunch was on a workday. She lives only minutes from my office and she said, whenever you want to take a break from eating lunch at your desk just common' over. So we planned a date and I showed up at her door. 
 
Amie's husband works with my husband at Nestlé, and last summer-ish, we became friends over over-grilled filets (compliments of my usually master-griller man) in our backyard. He was distracted with entertaining and talking and burned the steaks to a nice crispy black. We're lucky they even still liked us after that night – not just for the steaks, but after a couple glasses of wine, Curtis (who if you know him know that drinking makes him VERY sleepy) called it an early night and blamed it on the booze. He pretty much kicked them out at 10pm. They ended up going out after leaving our house not wanting to "waste" their babysitter for the evening. I can laugh about it now, but at the time I was horrified – new friends from his work coming over and he kicks them out because he's TIRED! Eak! Luckily, our friendship has only blossomed and we've had a few other dinner dates to make up for it.
 
But I digress. Amie is a great culinarian, foodie and now food blogger. So, when I showed up for that first lunch, she started pulling out TONS of leftovers from a party they'd hosted a few days before. After weighing all the options, I settled on a sandwich of something she called her famous Hawaiian BBQ Pulled Chicken. And boy was it good! I remember asking her for the recipe, her telling me it was super easy and listing off the short list of ingredients that I, of course, soon forgot. And forgot about until a few days ago.
 
So imagine my excitement when on her blog late last week, she posted THE recipe. I was ecstatic, having forgotten how good that sandwich was. I even had all the ingredients on hand, so yesterday, between Mother's Day church and lunch with Curtis' mom and Mother's Day Cavs game and dinner with my mom and nana, I popped the 4 ingredients into the crockpot to cook for a nice beginning of the week pre-prepared dinner.
 
And Amie wasn't lying…this was the EASIEST dish to prepare! I literally put chicken breasts into the crockpot with one diced onion, a can of chopped pineapple rings and a bottle of BBQ sauce and turned the crockpot on High. And voila – when we got home from my parents at about 9pm, we walked in to the most mouth-watering, sweet BBQ aroma. If we hadn't just eaten my mom's famous BBQ pulled pork for dinner, I think we would have tried it out right then. But we had, so we didn't.
 
So as Curtis went upstairs to prepare for his upcoming week, I fished the chicken breasts out of the sauce (that was really saucy because I didn't follow Amie's advice to defrost chicken thoroughly before putting in the crockpot) and shredded the chicken. After adding the shredded chicken back into the sweet sauce, it was still a bit "wet" so I ended up quickly cooking a couple more chicken breasts and shredding them to soak up the extra sauciness. But once I did – it looked amazing and the consistency was as it should have been from the beginning if I would have followed her advice. (Note to self: follow the recipe, even when you don't want to or think you know better!) Either way – it just means we get to eat even more of this chicken goodness, so oh well!
 
So tonight was the night to try Amie's famous Hawaiian BBQ Pulled Chicken Sandwiches. They were goood, except for the fact that the buns that i bought at the store last week got a little freezer burnt...nothing a little toasting in the toaster couldn't fix - although Curtis opted for wheat bread instead. Las night my mom sent us home with some of her leftover sides from her pulled pork dinner, so to accompany these chicken sandwiches we had some leftover mac and cheese and cole slaw too. 

For the second night in a row, my belly is full of BBQ!
 
So, here's the recipe for you to enjoy yourself…a great summer grilling alternative to burgers and dogs…I give you…
 
 
Amie's Hawaiian BBQ Pulled Chicken Sandwiches
 
1 bottle BBQ Sauce of your choice 
3 lbs boneless chicken breast, thighs or a combo of the two
1 large onion, sliced into chunks
1 can pineapple (crushed, niblits or diced rings)
*Optional* - up to a half a can of the pineapple juice, depending on how sweet you like your pulled chicken
hamburger buns or kaiser rolls
 
If you use frozen chicken, make sure it is completely defrosted.  If you cook it frozen, it will indeed cook but it will make a very "wet" sauce. 
Place your chicken in the bottom of the crock-pot.  Top with onions, then pineapple.  Pour entire bottle of BBQ sauce over the whole thing.  Turn your crock-pot on LOW and cook for 8-10 hours (or on HIGH for 4-6).  An hour or two before it is finished cooking, carefully remove the chicken from the crock-pot and shred it using two forks- watch out, it will be hot!  Place chicken back in the crock-pot and stir well to combine.  Finish cooking an additional hour or two so the chicken can absorb most of the sauce.  Serve on hamburger buns and top with coleslaw if desired.
 
 
Enjoy!

1 comments:

Amie said...

Thank you so much for all of these wonderful compliments! You are a doll :) What a sweet way to start my morning.

I am sooooo thrilled you tried out this recipe and enjoyed it as much as we do! It's one of those recipes that are great to have in your back pocket for last minute parties and a quick weeknight dinner.

Looking forward to hanging out with you guys next weekend! Yay!

 
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