Yep – you read that right. I’m going off-script today and making some pomegranate and sweet chili sticky chicken. I ran out of time to prep the slow cooker this morning and had some chicken thighs that needed to be used by end of day today, so I called an audible (almost football season, so prepare for the Madden-esque quotes).

Now – why was I distracted this morning? Well – for a fantastic reason. My loving wife – gave me ~25 minutes of exercise time to hop on my bike on the wind trainer in our basement. I’ll have you know that this is the first time I’ve ridden this bike on the wind trainer, since we lived in London – so going on ~6-7 years now. Taking that time this morning to exercise before work was an outstanding release and gave me some time to enjoy some Deltron 3030 on Pandora.

After my workout I boogied to the kitchen and put together a quick marinade for the chicken things, so it could soak in while we were at work. My best intentions were to keep it simple, but of course I ended up with more ingredients than I expected…

– 2 packs of chicken thighs
– half a jar of sweet chili sauce (leftover from another recipe)
– small bottle of POM pomegranate juice
– garlic powder
– smoked paprika
– big handful of brown sugar
– salt+pepper
– toasted sesame oil

Dump all of your ingredients in to a Tupperware dish and drop in the chicken thighs. Put the lid on. Shake vigorously, so the brown sugar dissolves. Place in the refrigerator and head out the door to work.

Don’t give dinner a single thought all day long… Other than dreaming of how delicious it’ll be when you get home.

Then get home and put the chicken in a glass/Pyrex dish and bake at 425 for 25-35 minutes (or until the chicken won’t give you salmonella – I’ll leave that up to you).

Now realize you have no sides… Doh!

Then enter my awesome wife to save the day with some five minute roasted garlic cous cous for a side.

Sit back and wait or change some diapers and make some bottles for the late night feedings.

With five to ten minutes left on the chicken put the cous cous in the pan/pot and then you are mere minutes away from an awesome dinner…

Serve it all up and voila!

Super yummy moist chicken thighs that have a nice hint of spice and sweetness. I’m going to tinker with the recipe to reduce the juice and add some honey or molasses to thicken up the stickiness…

Up next – what to do with leftovers… Brown sugar glazed carrots in Charles Smith Kung Fu Girl Riesling and leftover sweet spicy chicken thighs in my giant cast iron dutch oven…