Why yes.. you DO look good in that garlic!

One of my most favoritest gals who just happens to write one of my most favoritest blogs is Danielle of Habeas Brulee. Danielle and her fiance, Dave are known for their creativity in the kitchen. They come up with some fantastic dishes that not only sound delicious but are rarely of the ordinary. Each post she shares features a fresh and new recipe, with a story of how the idea, and creation of, took place. I seriously look forward to reading each new post! I've even been known to try a couple of her recipes out and lemme tell you.. she's not just a excellent writer, photographer and lawyer - she's an amazing cook! (holy crap I haven't blogged about her Cocoa-Nana bread yet! DOH!)

Anyhoo.. when I saw that she has decided to host a one-off event called "Yes, Of Course You Can Pair Garlic With That!", I knew I'd be participating. The premise of this event is to use an ingredient(s) that you'd not normally associate as pairing well with garlic. It's a way to be inventive, to play around with you food and quite possibly, come up with something amazing.

Now the burning question was.. what the hell am I going to pair with garlic?

Admittedly, I am not too adventurous in the kitchen. I mostly make staples that my mom or dad taught me, I chose recipe bases that are familiar to me - that I can almost taste before actually making it - and my idea of living on the edge is trying a brand new recipe that doesn't call for butter, mayo or chocolate. :P So I was pretty confident that whatever I did try, it wouldn't go too far out of my comfort zone - I mean, hell, I've got the Daring Bakers for that kinda recipe making right? Okay so not too far away from the zone but also something that I've never made before - this had to be a new recipe.. No.. not ice cream. No.. not lavender cookies with garlic chips. No.. not sweet and sour garlic - although, that doesn't sound too shabby. Hmm.. what about brown sugar and garlic? Garlic gets sweet when it's roasted.. brown sugar is sweet but not too sweet. Hmmmm... that's it! I got lucky quickly - I did a search for garlic and brown sugar on my favorite Recipezaar site and found a recipe for Crockpot Garlic Brown Sugar Chicken, with 208 ratings, and 4.5 stars I figured it's got to be good. I had also wondered where the hell have I been my whole life because, obviously, the old brown sugar/garlic combo was not a first. Duh.

I did a couple things differently, but I doubt they made any difference in taste to the finished dish. I didn't have Sprite or 7-Up, so I subbed key-lime flavored sparkling water. My chicken was a lot smaller than the recipe called for, since there is just Hubbs and I, so my cooking time was drastically shorter - I think about 4.5 hours on low made my wee bird almost fall apart. And finally, since cooking in a crockpot does not promote crispy skin, I had to transfer the bird from the crockpot to a 450º oven for about 20 more minutes to attain delicious crispedy, lip smackin' & finger lickin' good skin.

This chicken was delicious but the garlic wasn't as pronounced as I'd hoped it would be. I even added an extra TBS. of minced garlic, figuring I'd make it super garlicky, but no.. not so much. I served it with roasted vegetables in a balsamic sauce and basmati rice. FanFarkingTastic. This dinner will be made again in the near future - with more garlic, a little less liquid and 1/2 the sugar. I have a feeling it will be perfect then.

I think Jaden should make it and let us know if I'm correct. ;)

Check out Danielle's Habeas Brulee in the near future for delicious dishes featuring lots of garlic and lots of.. stuff.. that doesn't normally pair up with garlic! Yeah!!