Two Chickens, One Barbeque

I know what you're thinking, and forget about it, cause we're not going there. I thought the title of this post might catch your eye, and peak your curiosity. For those of you who have NO CLUE of what I'm talking about, consider yourself lucky.

Ladies and Gentlepeople -- I dearly hope that you're 4th of July was as fun and as successful as ours. We are very fortunate to live at the end of a cul-de-sac in North Natomas, and equally blessed to have the greatest neighbors anyone could ever ask for.

I belive that Rodney King would dearly love this neighborhood, because we all really do "just get along."

Beer Can Chicken

That photo to your immediate left? It represents part of the main course that we served to about 20 friends and neighbors last night. It is commonly referred to as "beer can chicken" and is also known as "beer butt chicken." I prefer "beer can chicken" myself. It's just a tad more classy in my opinion.

These chickens have been lovingly coated with a mixture of spices and herbs, some of which came directly from the backyard. The empty beer cans are filled with a mixture of red and white wines (whatever you have is good) and the cans also contain fresh herbs harvest from the backyard, including lemon thyme, parsley, basil and dill weed just to name a few. We stuff both cans with as many fresh herbs that will fit.

The cans are then inserted into the cavity of both whole chickens, which had been marinating in this special spice mixture for 24 hours. I've put both recipes below for your convenience. Feel free to experiment, because this is one delicious recipe.

Beer Can Chicken After Roasting

Both chickens only took about 70-80 minutes to thoroughly cook -- and they come out as tender as a rotissiere chicken from any supermarket (only it's that much better). The cook (me in this case) has to monitor the cooking process very carefully, however. Although the grill is set on low, the drippings from both birds cause quite the flame-up. So, if you're going to try this at home kids, please have a handy-dandy water bottle nearby.

Otherwise, beer can chicken will come out looking a lot like beer burnt chicken.

The wine and herbs play a huge role in the cooking process. The wine eventually will start to boil, and the steam rising from the can of wine and fresh herbs will help cook the chicken from the inside out, aided by the flame from the grill.

Potatoes from the Bird Back 40

Our 4th of July feast also featured other "goodies from the garden," such as these "All Blue" and "Cranberry Red" potatoes that Venus and I harvested just a few days earlier from one of the raised beds. Venus planted exactly one pound of potatoes last March in one of the raised beds. That one pound investment netted about 75 lbs. of potatoes.

Although I thought the wife was making far too much potato salad for the 4th, my fears were for naught. Venus made two types of potato salad with the freshly harvest potatoes: spicy and volcanic spicy. Both were a huge hit. There are some leftovers on the day after the 4th of July, but not nearly as much as I imagined. The wife's "Red, White & Blue" potato salad was clearly a hit.

Heirloom Tomatoes-Bird Back 40

We're both very fortunate, Venus and I, that the garden is now beginning to produce in large numbers. These heirloom tomatoes represent about one-quarter of what is now ripe and ready to harvest on the vine. What you're looking at is a mixture of Lemon Boy (yellow), Azoychka (yellow), Druzba (Red), Campbell's 1327 (red) and Bloody Butcher (red) tomatoes. The cucumber garden, meanwhile, provided four ready-to-harvest, Diva and Marketmore cucumbers.

The resulting salad is one of my favorites. I proceeded to chop and mix everything together, drown it in red wine vinegar, coat it with salt and pepper and then add a dusting of dried oregano flakes. After tossing everything together to mix all spices and vinegar together, I added a second dusting on the top for good measure.

I found out that many of our guests last night are big fans of yellow tomatoes. And there's no denying the taste of an Azoychka or Lemon Boy tomato. I personally believe the orange colored Kelloggs Breakfast tomatoes are some of the best and zestiest I've ever tasted, but the fans of Brandywine will challenge me on that.

But the best part of 4th of July isn't the food. It's a great meal, yes, but the real show comes later. 4th of July, like many holidays, are for children. Although Venus and I are not fortunate enough to have our own yet, we do have a niece and nephew who we host anytime we can get them. Add those kids to a neighborhood full of children, and you have an outdoor holiday filled with shrieks and excitement.

This is when memories are made. And as I watched our niece and nephew run in circles last night, multiple sparklers in hand, I knew that Venus and I had both created a memory that the kids will remember for a lifetime. In time, they will be fortunate enough to create memories for other children.

But let's not rush things. 4th of July is for children. Spice rub recipes and directions are below. Feel free to change or add spices. Any mixture comes out great!

BEER CAN CHICKEN SPICE RUB #1

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon garlic salt

1 tablespoon pepper

1 tablespoon paprika

1 tablespoon dried rosemary

Place all spices in a small bowl and mix together

BEER CAN CHICKEN SPICE RUB #2

4 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons garlic salt

3 teaspoons paprika

3 teaspoons pepper

2 teaspoons white pepper

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 teaspoons dried thyme (lemon thyme works just as well)

Place all spices in a bowl and mix well

DIRECTIONS:

Remove giblets from the cavity of a whole chicken, rinse well, inside and out, and dry with a paper towel (or two).

Place chicken on a large cutting board (this gets kinda messy) and use a basting brush to coat entire chicken with a standard cooking oil. Press spice rub on the top and sides and bottom of chicken. You should have just enough, and I can't emphasis the word "press" enough. Coating the oiled chicken isn't good enough. You need to press that spice rub on, and yes, this will result in hands covered with oil and spices. I told you it was messy.

You can allow chickens to sit in the refrigerator for 24 hours, or cook immediately. Fill a standard beer can (note: drink beer first), about half to three-quarters full with any red or white wine you have handy. If you want to put fresh herbs in the wine-filled beer cans, whatever you have available will work just fine. But it's not required.

Hold the back of the chicken in the palm of one hand. Turn upright (like the chicken is standing on two legs), and insert beer can into the cavity of the chicken. Place can and chicken on pre-heated grill carefully. The can and chicken legs will help the chicken stay upright. Adjust if necessary.

Cook on low to semi-low heat for 70-80 minutes and keep a water bottle handy for barbeque flareups, because it WILL flare.

Use tongs to remove chicken from can after cooking. Let sit for 5 minutes before carving.

ENJOY!!!

V is for VICTORY! (and Venus)

Here's hoping that your Memorial Day Weekend was as productive as mine! The wife that is VENUS and I spent three wonderful days in the yard and at local nurseries, as we look for ways to creatively landscape the "Back 40" and our "fruit salad" backyard.

With gardening season now starting to move into full swing (yes -- there's still time to plant tomatoes, cucumbers, the good stuff) -- I needed to complete a rather important project that will hopefully lead to a vast improvement to our pickling project that we undertook for the first time last summer.

It's not that last year's Dill Pickle canning project was a failure, mind you. It wasn't! Venus and I canned 36 one-quart jars of different types of dill pickles last summer, and they were fabulous.

But we also learned a few things.

Not all cucumbers make great pickles. Despite our efforts to produce batch after batch of crunchy, garlic-dill pickles, some of them came out a tad "soft" after the canning process. We learned a very important lesson.

That cucumber that tastes so great in your summer salad? It may not turn out to be the best variety for pickling. Some do well, like the Armenian cucumber. But the Burpee hybrid? The Diva? If you like soft pickles, then you'll like these varieties. But if you want pickles to have a semblance of CRUNCH when you eat them, you may want to try another variety.

Venus and I spent last winter pouring over the seed catalogues and possibilities. We finally settled on two or three different seed packets for "pickling" cucumbers, and gardening friend Carri Stokes was kind enough to provide seeds for the highly desired, and very crunchy after canning, Armenian cucumber.

But -- all of these seeds presented a problem. Where do we plant them all? The cucumber bed I created last year is perfect for three or four varieties of cucumbers. But not eight. And, it's probably not wise to mix pickling cucumbers with slicers.

To put in short and sweet -- we needed another planter bed. And that's just one project that we knocked out this weekend.

However, this box is unlike the Lincoln Log boxes that I've described in great detail in previous posts on this blog (Planter Boxes on a Budget). This project would utilize standard Redwood fenceboard purchased from Home Depot, a Redwood 2X4, about 100 gold screws, three Makita cordless drills, a belt sander and finally, redwood stain to protect the finished project.

This was a big deal.

I was delighted to find the standard Redwood fenceboard on sale this weekend at the man's toy store, Home Depot. I was even more delighted when I discovered that not only was the desired fenceboard on sale (think CHEAP) -- it was also LOCAL. That's right. This is Mendocino County redwood -- the best redwood on the planet in my humble opinion.

Plus, at a price of $1.67 per wide fenceboard and $1.29 for the smaller trim boards, I wasn't going to argue. Bill Bird knows a deal when he sees one. This was a deal. Plus -- Home Depot would do a large part of the required cutting for me!

After purchasing the standard six foot long boards (well -- almost six feet -- they do cheat just a tad), I instructed my handy-dandy Home Depot wood-cutter to lop off the ear from the fenceboard in question -- lop off another one and a half feet from all four of the larger boards that would make up the sides of this box. I also had him cut the 2X4 into six pieces that were about eleven inches long.

These 2X4 pieces would hold my box together.

Venus' father (my father-in-law), the retired rocket scientist who knows all when it comes to box building (or any other subject -- just ask him), provided the "brains." He also served as the steady hand cutting the redwood trim boards, which had to be cut at a perfect length.

I must admit, he's far better with a table saw than I am.

This was a fairly easy project once we got all the tools in place. We used one Makita to drill pilot holes for the screws, another for the countersink and the third for the actual screw driving. Screws would then be driven into the 2X4 pieces placed in the corners, plus two more located in the center of the box for reinforcement.

I've found that putting the box together is actually the easy part of any planter-box building project. The toughest part of the job is installing the trim, or finishing boards. You can't be off by more than an 1/8th of an inch, otherwise it's back to the drawing board and back to table saw for another piece of wood.

The trim boards serve two purposes. First -- they look darn good! Secondly, they provide badly needed reinforcement for the box in question. A planter box doesn't need them mind you, but they do help hold everything together. And a planter box will last longer with as much reinforcement possible.

Trim boards required the same installation process as the front and side boards. You drill the pilot hole, countersink each pilot hole, then drill the gold screw home. There are 12 trim boards on the box, including two in each corner.

And finally, the box is finished off with a final piece of trim: "V for Venus."

I have several different methods of constructing planter boxes in the backyard -- and I'll be honest with you -- this is the most difficult. It is one of the cheapest boxes to build -- the cost is about $30 when you add in the cost of wood, screws, sandpaper and stain. But it does require some previous wood-working knowledge.

These boxes are quite rough by the way. This is cheap redwood fenceboard after all. So -- after the screwing is done -- out comes the belt sander and a storm of redwood dust to "smooth out the edges." The final step is transporting it to the garage -- where stain is applied.

And this is how the finished project looks. I'm guessing that there are about 100 screws in this box. The stain will provide protection against the elements outside. My hope is this box will grow a record number of pickling cucumbers for our pickling efforts this summer.

The yard will provide most of the ingredients for the pickling project. Fresh dill weed is already growing, and some of it is actually starting to flower now. A special kind of garlic is probably a month away from harvest, as are the Thai Hot Peppers that are growing in one of the main planter beds. The only ingredients not to come from the backyard will be the water, vinegar and canning salt.

Here's hoping for a tasty pickle.