Pulled Chicken Sandwiches

Well I was supposed to put chicken breasts and thighs in the slow cooker for Shredded Chicken Sandwiches Thursday morning and that just did not happen. They were out of thighs at the grocery and so I thought it would be simple to get leg quarters, cut the thighs off and save the legs for another meal. I would have to do the "butchering" the night before, well that did not happen Wednesday night and the dish did not get made Thursday morning - no worries, we will just have Friday dinner on Thursday; Pan-fried beef steak, baked potato, and steamed veggies. The Wife O’ My Life decided that she did not want the potato and so I did not bake them. I sliced the medium-well steak fairly thin and put it on a bed of corn steamed with onions and peppers and topped it with pico de gallo for Sweet Wife. I had the corn also, but did not want any of the salsa, so I fried up a bunch of mushrooms to go with my very rare steak. It was excellent.

So this all means that I need to get the chicken in the slow cooker on Friday morning, again it did not happen. I looked for a recipe I had made before where I took leg quarters and placed them standing up in the rack that came with my roasting pan and cooked them on the BBQ, I know it came from America’s Test Kitchen (ATC), but I thought before I tear into my ATC cookbooks I would do a quick search on the Web. I was so glad I did; I found a recipe from Rachel Ray for Pulled Chicken that was so simple and the ingredients are all fairly healthy, OK the BBQ sauce is a bit out of the healthy box, but not too far. Best thing was it was ready in less than an hour.

The ingredient list is short and all right there in my pantry (I do not keep chicken in my pantry, but you know what I mean, right?):

2 lbs. boneless chicken breasts, about 4 halves, seasoned with salt and pepper
1 onion and 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 1/3 cup BBQ sauce (most of an 18oz bottle)
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
Hot pepper sauce

Toss the chicken, onion, and garlic in a Dutch oven or other large pan and then pour about 1 1/2 cups water in, just to cover the chicken. Add the BBQ sauce, when I do not make my own I use Bulls Eye brand because it tastes best to me and if that is not enough ATK says it is their go-to brand in a hurry, also add the vinegar and a few drops of hot sauce, I know I do not even deserve to be called a cook because I was out of Tabasco Sauce (who does not have Tabasco Sauce) so I used some chili sauce called Tuong Ot Sriracha it has a rooster on the front so it is rooster sauce to me. Bring this all to a boil and then reduce to a quick simmer for about fifteen minutes. When the chicken is done take it out and set it on a platter or cutting board to cool a little and set the timer for fifteen minutes, again. While the sauce simmers and reduces to about half of its former self you can shred the chicken. Rachel Ray wanted me to use two forks to shred the chicken, but I like to hold the chicken with one hand and shred it with a fork in the other hand…I am writing this with a cartoon bandage on the index finger of the holding hand, so you decide if you need one or two forks – do you need two fully functioning hands? Not always. Anyway the only thing left to do is to put the shredded chicken, and any liquid it has accumulated, back into the sauce and if need be heat it back up a bit. We served it on soft dinner rolls with a slice of pepper jack cheese. It was very good.