A Shameful Recipe

I'll be honest. I'm embarrassed to even post this recipe. Despite this chicken being really tasty, the recipe needs some modification. Surely there can be better ingredients. In fact, this reminds me entirely too much of a Sandra Lee recipe. The horror!


Cranberry Chicken (my mother's recipe adapted from my Uncle's wife's recipe...did you get all that?)
1 lb chicken thighs
6 oz dried cranberries
1 onion chopped
a knob of butter
1/3 C brown sugar
2/3 C ketchup
1 tsp yellow mustard
1 tblsp white vinegar

So salt and pepper the thighs and drizzle some olive oil and bake them at 400 for a bit. On the stovetop cook the onion in the butter (I added some garlic too) until translucent. Then throw in the brown sugar, ketchup, mustard, vinegar (I used white wine instead of regular white) and stir it all around until it is incorporated. I like to pulse the cranberries in the food processor and then throw those in. When all of that mess comes together, open the oven up and pour it over the chicken and mix it around and bake until the chicken is browned and cooked through.

So I'm thinking maybe some tomato paste instead of ketchup and maybe, just maybe some Dijon instead of yellow but I think that might change the whole flavor and add a strange zing (I have a mustard phobia). Cutting back on the brown sugar would be good too because it is a little bit too sweet. The cranberry sauce isn't too saucy so maybe some chicken broth would help things if you thicken it up to a good consistency. I don't know. Suggestions? It tastes really good but is almost shameful to eat because of the ingredients. Is that snobby of me? ha!