Grilled Chicken Legs with Barbecue Sauce

During the summer I grill pretty much every day, you can grill just about everything and it is always delicious. I grill burgers, steak, vegetables, bread, pizza, fish, anything! While I love it all and could never pick a favorite, I will always have a special place in my heart for grilled chicken. I don't know what it is about the smell of chicken cooking on the grill that is so intoxicating, but whenever I smell it I want to stop whatever it is I am doing and eat. 

This past week Lara and I were driving home from Holland and we stopped by Kapenga Farm to pick up some chicken. We had never been there before, but Lara had read about the farm online so we decided to check it out. There was a sign out from that said 'chickens for sale' so we stopped in. We walked in to the barn and were greeted with a freezer full of packaged frozen chicken, and a walk-in cooler with several buckets of fresh chicken. There was a sign that told us what to do and how to pay if no one was there, which they weren't. So we grabbed a couple packages of chicken legs, made out a check, dropped it in the drop box, and we were on our way. 

I love buying local, and supporting the farmers in my own community. Buying fresh, local chickens directly from the farm is my favorite way of doing business. And the chicken was delicious! We took it home and grilled it up the next day. It doesn't get better than that. 

I didn't really follow a recipe for the chicken. After looking around the internet at several different recipes to get some ideas I just did my own thing. First, I rubbed the legs with a mixture of chile powder, cumin, coriander, paprika, cayenne and salt. I gave them a drizzle of olive oil and threw them on the grill over medium to high heat. Right away I turned the grill down to low and grilled them for about 25 minutes, turning every 5 minutes or so. After 25 minutes I increased the heat of the grill and started basting with barbecue sauce. I kept basting and turning, basting and turning, building up the flavor of the sauce, and letting it caramelize over the heat. I continued this until the chicken reached an internal temperature of 170 degrees, another 5-10 minutes. Overall the legs took 30-35 minutes.

This is what summer is about. Grilled chicken with barbecue sauce, one of my favorite things. It makes great leftovers too, cold, straight out of the fridge. Easy and oh so good. This will be on the menu at least a couple of times this summer, and I can't wait!