Baked Chicken with Red Pepper Sauce

Mark says I don't follow directions on my recipes. He says "You never follow directions. I don't know why you use recipes at all. They DO know what they're talking about, you know." I don't know what he's talking about. I always follow directions.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 2 to 2-1/2 pounds meaty chicken pieces (breasts, thighs, and drumsticks)- ok, hold up. That's a LOT of chicken. And I don't really like dark meat. I used just two chicken breasts and cut them into three pieces each.
• 2 tablespoons margarine or butter, melted-not necessary. I didn't use it. Not because I'm a rebel, I just forgot. But you can skip the extra calories too.
• 1 medium red or green sweet pepper, cut into squares
• 1/4 cup sliced green onion
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 1/3 cup cider vinegar

Directions

1. In a plastic or paper bag combine the 1/4 cup flour, the salt, paprika, and pepper. Or, you know, a bowl. A bowl works just fine.

2. Skin chicken. Add chicken, a few pieces at a time, to the bag, shaking to coat well. Arrange chicken in a shallow baking pan; drizzle with melted margarine or butter. -Or not. Melted butter is not necessary. Bake in a 375 degree F. oven for 30 minutes. Hold up. That's too long for chicken breasts. 15 minutes should be a good start. Yes, I'll do 15 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, for sauce, in a medium saucepan, cook red or green sweet pepper and green onion in hot oil until tender. Stir in 2 tablespoons flour. Add chicken broth, sugar, and crushed red pepper. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir for 1 minute more. Remove from heat; stir in vinegar and cool slightly.

4. Spoon sauce over chicken. Bake for 30 minutes more or until chicken is tender and no longer pink, basting with sauce two or three times during baking. Reheat any remaining sauce and pass with chicken. Whoah! ANOTHER 30 minutes? My chicken is more than half-cooked already. Another 15 minutes should do the trick.

Makes 6 servings. Verdict:

30 minutes plus another 30 minutes? My chicken would have been burnt to a crisp. I'm sure if I had used the bone-in drumsticks and thighs it would have taken longer to cook. But 30 minutes total was plenty of time.

Oh... is that the "not following directions" my husband was talking about?

Whatever. The recipe turned out just GREAT using my own directions. The sauce is really thick, and would probably be great over pasta or rice. All in all, very tasty. It's on the list of recipes to do again.