TODAY'S
MENU
 |
| Sweet Memphis BBQ Chicken Sandwiches with Grilled Pineapple and Coleslaw on Homemade Buns, Pan-Grilled Squash, Caramel Apple Phyllo Pockets Topped with Caramel Praline Ice Cream |
This morning was cold and windy which made me miss summer a little. So I decided to bring a little warm summer feeling to dinner by doing a BBQ favorite off-season. Fresh pineapple was buy one get one free - which clinched the decision to do Sweet Memphis BBQ Sandwiches with Grilled Pineapple and Coleslaw on Homemade Buns. I had some butternut squash that could work as a grilled side vegetable. And I had several apples that were begging to be used - so I decided to do Caramel Apple Phyllo Pockets topped with Caramel Praline Ice Cream for dessert.
Main
Entrée
SWEET MEMPHIS BBQ CHICKEN
 |
| Shredded Sweet Memphis BBQ Chicken |
Slow-cooked meats in BBQ sauce make such good sandwiches. The meat becomes so tender and soaks up so much flavor. It's also unbelievably easy. I just throw the meat and sauce ingredients into the crockpot in the morning, set the crockpot to LOW and let them cook all day long. Then, an hour or so before serving, I take a knife and fork and shred the meat. I've done this with chicken, beef and pork with lots of different kinds of sauces.
This particular sandwich is classically served with coleslaw and grilled pineapple - so I will describe each part separately.
So for this chicken - I just threw 5 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts into the crockpot and then dumped the following sauce ingredients on top, put on the lid and set to LOW and shredded it before serving:
SWEET MEMPHIS SAUCE
1 1/4 c. cup ketchup
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 Tablespoons molasses OR maple syrup
1 packet dry onion soup mix
3 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
3 Tablespoons prepared mustard
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 Tablespoons chili powder
TANGY COLESLAW
My family doesn't like traditional coleslaw very much. So I found a tangier, crisper version of coleslaw that they really like on these sandwiches.
Shred a head of cabbage. You just take a large knife and slice a piece off like you would slice a piece of bread, and then take the slice and cut it into strips, like this:
 |
| Slicing and Shredding Cabbage |
Then grate 3 carrots with a cheese grater:
 |
| Grated Carrots |
Toss the cabbage shreds and grated carrots in a large bowl. Then in a small- medium sized saucepan: put one cup sugar, one cup vinegar, 1/2 cup of oil, 2 tsp dry mustard and 1/2 tsp each of salt and pepper. Put it over medium high heat and bring it to a boil for a minute or so. Then remove it from heat and let it cool for 2- 3 minutes. Then pour it over the cabbage/carrot mixture. Toss lightly, letting the heat wilt the cabbage slightly. Then refrigerate the coleslaw until you are ready to use.
(*It won't have the milky white color of traditional coleslaw.)
 |
| Finished Coleslaw |
TANGY COLESLAW
1 head of cabbage
3 carrots
1 c. sugar
1 c. white vinegar
1/2 c. oil
2 tsp. dry mustard
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
GRILLED PINEAPPLE
If you don't have fresh pineapple, canned sliced pineapple (rings) work fine. But fresh pineapple is quite a bit better than canned. Cutting a pineapple is a little work though.
First, lay the pineapple on its side and cut off the top and the bottom with a large, heavy knife.
 |
| Whole pineapple (left), ends chopped off (right) |
Then stand the pineapple up on its cut-off bottom. Take a smaller knife and cut down the sides of the pineapple to cut the thick skin off. Pineapples aren't perfectly shaped, so it takes some work to do this and you will find that you may have to cut some spots out that are left behind. Then lay the pineapple down on its side again and use your heavy, thick knife to slice it into slices that will not be too thick on a sandwich. Using the smaller knife again, cut out the tough core -in a circle. See below:
 |
| Cutting off the outer layer (left), slicing (center), cutting out core (right) |
Close to when you are going to assemble the sandwiches, cook the slices on a grill or hot griddle for a few minutes on each side until they are softened and warm.
HOMEMADE BUNS
Any roll or bread recipe can be used to make buns. You just want to make sure to use the kind of bread that goes well with the kind of thing you are serving on a bun - so ask questions like, "Is this something I want to serve on a crusty, soft, hard...(etc.) bun?"
I want to make a soft bun for this sandwich so I am using my favorite dinner roll recipe and just cutting it in half because I don't need as much dough as I do when making rolls.
First, I heat up 2 cups of milk in the microwave. I cook it for about 4 minutes on HIGH. Then I stir 1/3 c. of sugar into it until it dissolves. Then I add about 1/2 cup or so of instant potato flakes and 1 Tbsp. salt and stir them in until they dissolve. Then I let it sit for several minutes to cool off a little.
(*Real milk has to be scalded to work well in bread - but it still has to be the right temperature for the yeast. So heating it to a high temperature scalded it and now I want it to cool down so it will be warm enough to activate the yeast but not so hot it will kill it. I use the potatoes because potatoes helps break down the starch in the bread which makes it softer with a more tender crumb).
When the milk mixture is the right temperature, put it in the mixing bowl of a heavy duty stand mixer. Add the yeast. Slightly mix the yeast in and let it sit for a few minutes - it should bubble up a little. While it's sitting, melt one cube of margarine.
Turn the mixer on low and add one egg - let it mix in well. Then add one cup of flour and let it mix well. Then pour the melted margarine in and let it mix well again.
Add 4-5 more cups of flour slowly, one cup at a time until the dough just begins to pull away from the sides. Once it pulls away from the sides, let the mixer go for a few minutes without stopping. If the dough sticks to the sides again -instead of pulling away from the sides - you may have to add a little more flour. But only a little. You want the dough to be almost sticky but not quite. This ensures you will have soft, light fluffy rolls that rise well.
Grease a large plastic bowl for the dough to rise in - and grease your hands. Gather the dough together into a large ball and put it in the greased bowl. Cover it with a thick cloth or plastic wrap and leave it in a warm spot to rise. Let it double in size - about an hour or an hour and a half.
Then cut the dough in half, then cut each half in half again, and again -until you have 12 pieces of dough close to equal in size. Roll the pieces into smooth round balls and then flatten them to bun size. This can be the tricky part of making buns at first. You don't want them too big or too small. Place them on a greased baking sheet and then cover them to let them rise. You want them so that they are either touching each other or the sides of the pan, or close enough that they will touch as they rise. Like this:
 |
| Buns on greased cookie sheet before rising |
Let the buns rise until double - about 30 minutes or so.
 |
| Buns after rising |
Then bake at 350°F for 18-20 minutes until golden.
 |
| Baked buns |
Then when you are ready to put the sandwiches together, Slice the buns open, spray the cut sides with cooking spray or spread butter on them and then put the bun greased/buttered side down on a grill or hot griddle to crisp them so they don't get soggy from the BBQ sauce after the sandwich is assembled.
SOFT BUNS
2 cups milk
1/2 c potato flakes
1/3 c sugar
1 Tbsp salt
1/8 c
yeast
1/2 c
margarine (one cube)
1 egg
5-6
c flour
ASSEMBLY
Take one bun that has been sliced and grilled place a grilled pineapple slice on the bottom bun. Then top with a generous scoop of shredded BBQ chicken and a scoop of coleslaw. Top with the top bun.
Side Dish
Grilled Butternut Squash
 |
| Grilled Butternut Squash |
My late father-in-law used to grow butternut squash so I had to learn how to peel, slice and use them in different ways. So here's how I prepared them today. I used a large heavy chopping knife to cut off about 1/4-inch from the bottom of the squash in an even slice. Then cut off 1/4-inch from the stem end.
Then hold the squash in one hand and use a sharp vegetable peeler or small paring knife in the other hand to peel off the outer layer of the squash. You can also secure the squash standing upright and peel it in downward strokes with the peeler. After the peeling is all removed, stand the peeled squash upright on a cutting board. Cut down the middle from the top to bottom, with the same large heavy chopping knife. It may take some pressure to get all the way through some squash. (I've used both hands some times).
Scrape the seeds out with a good metal spoon. Then lay the squash halves, cut side down on the cutting board. Cut the squash into slices, lengthwise, the desired width of your squash pieces.
Brush the squash with olive oil, spread a little minced garlic over the oil -then sprinkle with salt and pepper.
You can broil it in the oven (on High Broil) for about 4 minutes on each side (until tender) or grill it. It works really good on the outside grill. But today is freezing so I am using my inside grill pan today. I grilled them over medium heat until they were tender on that side, flipped them over and grilled the other side.
Dessert
CARAMEL APPLE PHYLLO POCKETS
 |
| Caramel Apple Phyllo Pocket with Caramel Praline Ice Cream Drizzled with Caramel |
I wanted to make 8 of these. You need half an apple for each one and one sheet of phyllo dough for each. So I used 4 apples. To make these, First: core peel and slice each apple in half.
Take a large frying pan and put in a stick of butter, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water. Cook over medium high heat and let the butter melt and the sugar dissolve. Once it boils, turn the heat down to medium-low. Place the apples cut-side down in the sugary syrup. Then cover the pan with a lid and let them cook for 20-30 minutes. Every so often, use a fork to gently turn them over.
 |
| Apple Halves Cooking in Syrup |
When the apples are softened and nicely soaked in the sauce, carefully remove them from the sauce onto a plate. But let the sauce continue to cook on low.
Melt a stick of butter in a small glass dish and open a package of phyllo dough. Carefully pull one sheet from the stack and lay it out in front of you. (Cover the stack of remaining phyllo sheets with a damp dishcloth so they won't dry out.)
Lightly brush the sheet with butter, and then carefully fold it in half lengthwise and butter the top again. Place one of the cooked apple slices cut-side down on the folded sheet. Then fold the edges of the phyllo dough up over the apple. Like this:
 |
| Apple on Phyllo Dough with edges folded over it |
Roll the apple down the length of the dough and tuck the edges in. Brush the top of the wrapped apple pocket with butter and place it on a greased cookie sheet. Do that with the remaining cooked apple halves.
 |
| Rolled up Caramel Apple Pockets Before Baking |
Bake at 350°F for 15-18 minutes or until golden. While they are baking, continue to cook the syrup in the frying pan until it is golden. Add a 1/2 tsp. of vanilla and stir well. Set aside until the pockets are done.
Put one pocket on a plate, put a scoop of caramel praline ice cream next to it, drizzle both with syrup and sprinkle with cinnamon.
