Beer Can Chicken

Ah the infamous beer can chicken, AKA redneck duck confit.  Legend has it that at a BBQ competition some guy was waiting for brisket to cook overnight. He grew hungry while drinking some brews, and decided to cook himself up a chicken to snack on.  In his drunken state he accidentally set the chicken on his beer, and the beer can chicken was born.  Contrary to popular belief, the reason the chicken is so moist and delicious isn't from alcohol vapors or anything like that.  Sitting upright lets all that tasty skin fat render down the breast meat making it all tender and delicious!

After patiently waiting 3 whole days for our chicken to defrost, we were FINALLY able to cook it.  And with the weather warming up, we've been using the grill a lot more lately, so we decided to try out some beer can chicken.  This isn't a quick meal, like our last few have been, but it's totally worth the wait.

Start by procuring a can of beer.  We used Oskar Blues Ten Fidy Imperial Stout, since we had it on hand, but you can use whatever you want.  Reserve about 1/4 of the can for your rub, drink about 1/4, and leave the other half in the can.  Then we chopped up some garlic, rosemary, and oregano, and added that to the can with a bit of your dry rub ingredients.

For the rub, we used that 1/4 can of beer we reserved, some grapeseed oil (or whatever oil you have on hand), paprika, cayenne, cumin, dried sage, dried thyme, salt, pepper, and some secret hobo spices (we can't tell you ALL of our secrets!).  Before mixing the wet and dry ingredients, we put some of the spice mixture into the beer can (mentioned above), and saved some to sprinkle on the bird before we put him on the grill.  Then just get your hands dirty and rub your mixture all over the chicken, making sure to get into all the nooks and crannies.

Then you'll want to carefully insert the beer can into the cavity of the chicken, and stand him upright in a foil roasting pan.  You'll want to pull his legs forward and tuck his wings forward.  This will help him balance and sit upright.  Just like roasting a chicken in the oven, filling the cavity will help keep the breast meat moist and juicy, and having the metal can inside helps cook the bird from the inside out.

The most important part of the process is to use indirect heat, cooking him low, and slow.  For our grill, we only turned on the outer burners, and placed our chicken in the middle.  The other tray you see in the picture is filled with some water to help evenly distribute the heat.  If you own a fancy grill with a built-in thermometer, you'll want it to heat up to 225-245 degrees.  If your grill doesn't have a thermometer like ours, you can just wing it! (pun intended).

While the bird was cooking, we sat back, relaxed, and patiently waited.  We were starting to get anxious so we made our side dishes.  We made some sweet potato fries, and butter braised radishes.  Both sides were extremely simple.

For the radishes, cut off the ends, and quarter them.  And you can slice up your sorrel.

Then melt some butter in a pan with some stock.  We used all the stock we had for our risotto, so we just used some water.  Once it's melted, toss in your radishes, season with salt and pepper, and just let them cook.

Once the butter sauce thickens, you can take them off the heat.  This took about 15 minutes.  Then just toss them with the sorrel.   I never would have thought about eating warm, cooked radishes, but they were surprisingly tasty.  Obviously the butter helped in the taste department, but warming them also took some of the spicy bite out of them.  They were still on the crunchy side, which I liked, and the sorrel gave it back some of the freshness that the cooking process removed.

It ended up taking about 2 hours to cook our bird.  But it was well worth the wait.  The skin came out nice and crispy, the meat and juicy and tender, and there were plenty of drippings to make a delicious pan sauce.

We poured the drippings from the pan, and whatever beer was left in the can into a little skillet, added some cream, and whipped up a tasty little gravy.

Our beer can chicken dinner wouldn't be complete without a beer to drink, so we cracked open a bottle of Taster's Choice, a collaboration brew between DC Brau (our local brewery) and Ska Brewing, from CO.  They teamed up the ska band, The Pietasters, to make a coffee doppleback brew.  It was a delicious pairing to our chicken.


Overall, the meal came out delicious, it was a hearty and rustic meal, that packed a flavorful punch.  This is a great meal for summer get togethers because it starts with cracking open a beer and the grill does all the work while you continue the drinking and merriment with your friends.

One Hell of a Burger

With spring nearing, and a trip to the beach over Memorial Day weekend, we've decided it's time to whip ourselves into shape.  We both packed on a couple pounds over the winter, so we decided to take action!  I'm a newbie to the whole Paleo diet, and if you're not familiar, here's a simple overview of what you can/can't eat:

courtesy of dearpaleo.com

We already eat pretty well, so it shouldn't be too hard to transition to a slightly stricter Paleo diet.  We're allowing ourselves 1 cheat day a week.  This should help fuel my love of carbs.  

We had already planned on making burgers tonight, so to make it more Paleo friendly, we skipped the bun, and just placed the patty on a bed of bibb lettuce.  When trying to decide what kind of burgers we wanted to make, I thought of one of my favorite burgers in DC...Ray's Hellburger.  Sadly, the place has shuttered, but you can still try their burgers at Ray's to the Third.  Anyway...I'd always get their burger with roasted garlic, and grilled onions and peppers.  So this is an ode to Ray's Hellburger.

We started by roasting a few cloves of garlic...with a drizzle of olive oil, and sprinkle of salt and pepper, just wrap them up in foil and pop 'em in the oven.  An while the garlic roasted up, we also cooked up some sweet potato fries.  The fries got a brushing of olive oil, and a sprinkle of truffle salt, pepper, garlic and parsley.

While the garlic roasted and the fries cooked up, I got to work on the burger patties.  I chopped up a couple cloves of garlic, an mixed that with the ground beef, some truffle salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning.  We kept it really simple.

Since we had some peppers, onions, and mushrooms left over from last week's steak sandwiches, we warmed those up to top our burgers.  They were simply seasoned with a bit of salt and pepper.

As the components cooked up, we started to build the burger.  The burger went on top of the lettuce, we spread the roasted garlic on the burger, and then topped it with our peppers, onions, and mushrooms.

The crowning jewel was the fried egg on top!

The yolk was nice and runny, and since we held off on condiments, it provided a nice "sauce" for everything. An honestly, I didn't miss the bun.  This whole Paleo thing may not be so bad afterall.

Southern Hospitality

Tonight's dinner was quick and easy, and took me back to my days spent in NC.  Surrounded by bbq, this is where I learned to love cole slaw on my bbq, and vinegar-based sauce on my pulled pork.

Luckily, we already had everything we'd need on hand.  The pulled pork came from this week's share.  It already had some sauce on it that was slighly sweet, so we just threw it into a pan to reheat, along with some Dinosaur Bar-B-Que roasted garlic and honey sauce to balance out the sweetness.  I'm sure by now you're tired of me blabbering on and on about how delicious Dinosaur is, so I'll spare you the spiel, but I can't help it.  Its just THAT good!

We finally put some of our cabbage to use by shredding a few leaves, along with one of the carrots we got yesterday, to make some coleslaw.  For the dressing, we just mixed together some red wine vinegar, whole grain mustard, cumin, and a little grapeseed oil.  It had a nice tang to balance out the sweetness of the cabbage and carrot, and the cumin gave it a nice depth of flavor.

And our bbq meal wouldn't be complete without some fries...sweet potato fries!  For seasoning, we went with some truffle salt, roasted garlic salt, parsley and rosemary.  We tried to emulate the village fries at Good Stuff Eatery, adding our own twist with the truffle and garlic salts.

This was probably one of the easiest meals we've put together, and we even have leftovers for lunch tomorrow!  I can't complain about that!

Flippin' Burgers

When I first really got into cooking, I was (and still am) a fan of Rachael Ray.  Her recipes were easy and used common, everyday ingredients, and she made cooking look fun and easy.  And it turns out Justin had a bit of a crush on her too (which I can kinda see, she rescues pitbulls, can cook, and has delightful catchphrases such as "yum-o").  Anyway...one of the few recipes of hers that I still make are her spanikopita burgers.  The spinach and onions keep the turkey juicy, and the feta gives the burger a nice saltiness.  To kick up the Greekyness, I like to top them with homemade tzatziki.

So here goes...

Start by chopping up some red onion and garlic and get that sauteing in a pan.  Once they become really fragrant, and the onions are translucent, set them aside to cool.

For the spinach component, I take the easy route and just use frozen chopped spinach.  Once its defrosted, you'll want to wring out all the water so your burgers don't become soggy.  Just like I did with the kohlrabi the other night, you'll want to put the spinach into a dish towel, and just wring it out.

You'll be surprised by how much water comes out of the spinach.  To quote Justin, "The spinach is peeing!"  Yes, we're like 5 year olds sometimes :)

Once you've gotten as much water out of the spinach as you can, toss it in the bowl with your ground turkey.  Then you add in some feta crumbles, and the spices.  This time we went with salt, pepper, oregano, parsley, a little rosemary, and some dill.  Now its time to get down and dirty and mix everything together so all the ingredients are evenly distributed.  Then you're ready to make your patties and cook 'em up!

While the burgers were cooking, we made the tzatziki.  I like to grate the cucumber so its easier to get the water out of it, but Justin took the time to slice it really thin.  If you have a decent amount of time on your hands, you can sprinkle the cucumber with salt and let the water leach out of it.  But if you're making it while the burgers cook, you can squeeze out the cucumbers just like you did with the spinach.  Otherwise your tzatziki will be runny, and nobody likes runny tzatziki.

My mini food processor was the perfect size for the amount of yogurt we had left.  We just used non-fat plain yogurt on hand, but I prefer to make it with Greek yogurt.  It just adds an extra bit of tang, and its a little thicker than plain yogurt.  Regardless, either will work just fine.  So into your food processor, toss the yogurt, some garlic, the cucumber, fresh dill, a splash of lemon juice, and some salt and pepper.  Puree it all together until the garlic and cucumber are finely chopped.  And there you have it.  Piece of cake!

Sometimes when I make these burgers, I like to make a little salad to top the burgers.  This usually consists of sliced tomatoes, pepperoncini, red onion, and some arugula, dressed lightly with olive oil and red wine vinegar.  The only thing I had on hand this time were the pepperoncini, so I just sliced up a few for a little added spice.

And because you have to have fries with your burgers (I'm pretty sure there's a rule written somewhere to that effect), we made some sweet potato fries as our side.  And we had plenty of extra tzatziki leftover for dipping!

From New Orleans to New England

With our fresh Rappahannock River oysters and clams, plucked from the ocean on Monday, and in our fridge on Tuesday, we wanted/needed to use them right away.  Naturally we opted for oyster po' boys with a homemade aioli, New England style clam chowder, and sweet potato fries.  Here's what we started with:

While I started working on the chowder, Justin went to work on shucking the oysters.

Thankfully there were no injuries while shucking oysters.  The only casualty was my paring knife, who lost its tip.  But it didn't land in the oysters :)  The clams cooked up in no time, and although they didn't require much time to steam and open up, they still left a really flavorful broth that we used in the soup.  We pulled out some McGyver skills in straining the oyster broth.  Since I don't own a fine mesh sieve, we used a coffee filter to separate the sand and grit from the clam broth.  It helps to have an extra set of hands for this part.  We also kept the oyster nectar, and threw some into the chowder and some into the aioli.  Once the clams opened up, I set them aside while making the rest of the chowder so they wouldn't overcook.  We kept the breading on the oysters simple...a little cornmeal and a little Dinosaur BBQ cajun seasoning.  *Side note: if you're ever in Rochester, Syracuse, or Harlem, do yourself a favor and go to Dinosaur BBQ.  They have the best brisket you'll ever have.  It just melts in your mouth.  I may have started drooling a little just thinking about it.*  Now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

 

To top the po' boys, we used some of the homemade sauerkraut we had in the fridge (leftover from when we made buffalo pastrami reubens, another CSA meal!) for some tangy crunch, and a homemade aioli.  Justin has perfected the art of making small batch of aioli with an immersion blender.

In the aioli we threw in some of the oyster nectar, sriracha, lemon juice, garlic powder, and some whole grain mustard.  It gave the po' boys a bit of a kick!  A few clams were thrown into the bottom of each soup bowl and we poured the chowder over it to warm them up again.  We even managed to not burn the sweet potato fries, and time everything pretty perfectly.  

It was the perfect way to end the week and get ready for the weekend!