Good but still disappointing--Cranberry Grilled Chicken

Cranberry Grilled Chicken
Better Homes and Gardens New Dieter’s Cookbook Copyright 2003

½ teaspoon finely shredded orange peel
¼ teaspoon black pepper
8 chicken drumsticks or thighs, skinned
½ of a 10-ounce container frozen cranberry-orange sauce, thawed (1/2 cup)I used one off the shelf
¼ cup bottled barbecue sauce
2 teaspoons Dijon-style mustard
Lettuce leaves (optional)
1 medium orange, sectioned (optional)

1. In a small bowl stir together orange peel and pepper. Sprinkle evenly over chicken; rub in with your fingers. Place chicken on the grill rack of an uncovered grill directly over medium coals. Grill for 25 minutes, turning occasionally.
2. In a small saucepan stir together cranberry-orange sauce, barbecue sauce, and mustard. Cook and stir until heated through. Remove from heat. (Mixture with be thick.)
3. Brush cranberry mixture onto chicken. Grill for 10 to 20 minutes more or until tender and no longer pink (180 degrees F), turning and brushing occasionally with the cranberry mixture. Discard any remaining cranberry mixture. If desired, serve with lettuce leaves and orange.
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The picture in the cookbook looked so good, I kept coming back to this recipe. However, I've never seen frozen, cranberry-orange sauce. I bought a version off the shelf (it came in a tub). I'm not sure if that was the right move. This stuff was very jelly-like and it was sort of hard to brush on the chicken.

To make matters worse, the grill died when I was making this. I'm not sure if the tank sprung a leak or what happened. After using that tank for at least a year, it registered close to full when we put the indicator on in August. Then a month later, it was empty? Very strange. I had to finish this chicken in the oven.

The flavor wasn't bad, it just didn't live up to my expectations which were pretty high. At least I finally got rid of that cranberry-orange sauce which had been sitting on a shelf in my cupboard for months. I don't know why I waited so long to make this. Maybe deep down, I knew this recipe wasn't going to work as well as I had hoped.

Oh, another factor could have been the barbecue sauce - it was a bit overpowering. There are so many different varieties - maybe I picked the wrong one.

I made this a few weeks ago and I still don't have any gas for my grill. Hunting season gets in the way of a lot of things around here. We've been having perfect grilling weather too. Autumn sneaks in here and there but it doesn't seem to want to commit.

I missed auction this week due to heavy rain and I didn't like paying grocery store prices for my produce.

Blast From The Past: Chicken with Vegetable Sauce from June 2007. I almost forgot about that recipe. That was also from this cookbook which is one of my favorite cookbooks.

Question of the Day: Do you like cranberry sauce? Do you like the jellied version or the whole cranberry sauce?