Light and Easy Caribbean Chicken

Have you ever had this happen to you?  You read (or hear) a warning so many times that you get desensitized to it.  Things like "no running with scissors" or "no swimming right after you eat."  You hear the warning so many times you just tune it out and forget what the whole reason was behind the warning in the first place.  My mom always told me to tie my shoes if they came untied.  In one ear and out the other.  Once in college (I remember this vividly) I noticed that my shoe was untied.  For whatever reason (laziness or lateness being the top two most likely) I did not stop to retie.  A minute later I was on the ground.  I thought to myself, "mom was right."  How many times have I read the warning about wearing gloves when you chop hot peppers?  Probably 50.  Today, did I put on gloves prior to chopping a hot pepper?  No, I did not.  In my defense: A) I worked last night and wasn't thinking clearly  B) I hadn't planned to make this recipe when in a zombie state, but I had to rearrange my meal plan because Sam's birthday meal was on Monday, when this recipe was originally slated.  Do you SEE why my meal plan is (or should be) unflinchingly rigid?  Bad things happen when the order is disturbed.  C) This is the first time I have ever bought or used jalapenos, and I was being naive and didn't really know what I was getting into.  D) On Man v. Food, and through my own google research, I learned that jalapenos aren't even that hot, as far as hot peppers go.  There is a whole scale of hotness and jalapenos are at the low end, and something scary called a "ghost chili" is at the high end.  I (again, naively) thought it was no big deal.  E) I was talking to my sister on the phone while I was making this, and somehow I am going to make this her fault.  So.  It's not even like I didn't have gloves.  I always keep some in a drawer because I really can't stand touching raw meat.  So I can't use that as an excuse.

I promise that I will get to the recipe.  But first, my incident report.  I placed chunks of pineapple and red pepper into my Tupperware food chopper thing that is good for making salsa.  I then cut and seeded one little jalapeno and put strips of it into the chopper.  Then, I chopped it all up with the easy turning motion my Tupperware product provides.  I want to stress at this point that I do not hold Tupperware at fault for what happened.  It was my sister's fault because I was talking to her on the phone from step #1 of this process.  Maybe if I hadn't been on the phone with her I would have remembered and heeded the glove warning.  Maybe she should have said to me "Hey!  Put some gloves on before you chop that up."  But neither of those things happened, and I just willy nilly chopped the jalapeno with my bare hands and put the strips into the bowl.  I ate a chunk of the pineapple after all three things had been chopped into the consistency you would want for salsa.  It was H O T (I am such a wimp about spice).  It burned my tongue, and then my lips.  Sting-y needle-y type burning.  I proceeded with the recipe.  Washed my hands several times through the next hour, knowing in the back of my mind I had just cut a hot pepper.  Then.  Before I started cooking the chicken, I decided to put my contacts in, which had been out since this morning when I got home from work and then went to bed.  The detective types among you can probably figure out what happened next.  One contact in.  Crazy horrible burning in my eye.  Me saying "ah ah ah ah ah" and thinking, in rapid succession, takeitoutican'ttakeitoutihaveitonmyfingerstootakeitouticanttakeitouttakeitouttakeitout.  I wrenched it out of my eye just as Steve came to see what the heck was wrong with me.  I don't know what you guys have in your houses, but here we do not have an emergency eye wash station.  So Steve was holding my eye open while he poured in multi purpose contact solution, and saying helpfully, "open your eye."  The children looked on, fascinated.  After what seemed like a really long time, he stopped.  I put my glasses back on and he threw away the tainted contact lens.  I decided not to go anywhere tonight after all.  And I went back to cooking.  This recipe is from the Sam's Club cookbook.  I am undecided at this point if some of my anger should be directed toward them, as well.

Light and Easy Caribbean Chicken
Grilled chicken:
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup honey
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 garlic cloves, minced
6 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
Island salsa:
1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
1/2 of 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes, drained (I put the other half in the freezer to throw in the next time I make spaghetti sauce...that was my sister's idea.  So you can see she helps me when it's convenient for her)
1 cup medium red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 cup fresh pineapple, finely chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped
4 tbsp dried basil (that seemed like way too much and I only used 2 tbsp)
2 tbsp lime juice

Combine ketchup, worcestershire sauce, vinegar, honey, soy sauce, and garlic in a large ziploc bag (I did this last night before I went to work).  Add chicken to bag and refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight (I put the chicken in this morning when I got home from work).  Combine salsa ingredients in a medium bowl and cover.  Refrigerate at least 30 minutes to allow flavors to blend (I did this at 4 pm.  For any of you wondering, yes I drank a cup of coffee when I woke up).  Grill chicken about 5 minutes on each side (or use a Foreman grill), until no longer pink in the center.  Serve each chicken breast with salsa.

So for all my trouble, this did turn out very good.  Everyone liked the chicken.  The little ones had no salsa on theirs.  This made a huge amount of salsa.  We only used about 1/4 of what I made, so we will be eating this with tortilla chips for several days.  I will be making this again, more wisely, and substituting cilantro for the basil, because it tasted like it wanted cilantro to be in it.

In closing I would like to remind you to wear gloves if you chop jalapenos.  As an alternative, you could not use jalapenos at all.  If you decide to use them, do not talk to my sister on the phone while you cook with them.  This has been a safety briefing brought to you by New Recipe Night.