I went through the entire Fourth of July weekend without eating a piece of barbecue chicken so it's barbecued chicken I'm craving. I've been a grilling machine over the past couple of days and am not in the mood for tending chicken over a hot grill in today's steamy weather: Chicken baked in the oven with a savory barbecue sauce will scratch the itch!

My family loved the barbecue sauce I used for my Fourth of July Cherry Dogs. It's so easy adding fresh cherries to a really good bottled barbecue sauce, so I'm going to repeat the recipe--doubling up on the fresh cherries for tonight.

I added the sauce in the last few minutes of baking time, otherwise the sugars would burn. I'd imagine this recipe would be good utilizing any chicken part but if baking chicken breasts, reduce the cooking time so the flesh doesn't dry out.

I enjoy the flavor the bone and skin lends to chicken, and the skin keeps the juicy flesh from drying out. To save additional calories, however, tonight I removed the skin before eating.

Yield: 6 chicken thighs Active Time: 10 minutes Bake Time: apx. 65 minutes Cost: $6.50 (using ad item chicken thighs)

Ingredients

6 large chicken thighs, skin and bone attached 1/2 cup barbecue sauce, cherry-barbecue sauce preferred 1 cup pitted cherries, quartered

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375Ëš. 2. Trim excess skin from chicken thighs and rinse in cold water. Pat dry and lightly season both sides of meat with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. Arrange on a lightly oiled, foil-lined baking sheet. Bake on middle rack of oven apx. 50 minutes of until lightly browned. Remove from oven and drain excess fat from baking sheet. 3. Combine barbecue sauce with pitted cherries. With fingers, gently pull chicken skin away from the meat, leaving one side intact. Divide and spoon sauce under chicken skin and under each piece of chicken. Arrange skin back over cherry sauce and return chicken to oven; continue baking for 15 minutes. 4. When serving if desired, remove chicken skin before eating. Spoon cherry sauce over chicken thighs and serve.