Beer-can chicken was on the menu for day four of the pantry challenge. We have had a whole chicken in our freezer for about six months. It seemed like such a good idea when I saw the chicken on sale at Fareway. A whole chicken for $3. I couldn’t pass it up.
This is probably where some of our freezer trouble comes from. I see good deals and buy them, knowing I can freeze the meat easily. When I get home the meat gets shunted into the freezer. Then, when it’s time to cook a meal, it’s easier for me to run down to the grocery store and buy meat that’s not on sale than plan a day ahead and pull out a pot roast or chicken breast or steak to defrost. I see more meat on sale, I buy it and it also ends up in the freezer.
Planning ahead for the pantry challenge, I pulled my frozen chicken out of the freezer the day before we were going to eat it, along with a roast I hope to do something with on day six. Supper is so much easier when I am able to plan ahead. There’s no sitting around at 5 p.m with George and I asking each other what we’re going to have for supper and then we end up throwing something together that’s probably not healthy.
When I got home to make the chicken on day four, the hardest thing I had to decide was what seasoning I was going to put on it. For those who have never had beer-can chicken — or soda-can chicken as some people call it — it is delicious.
You can put the chicken on the grill or in the oven. There’s a contraption available at some major hardware stores (we found ours at Menards in the grilling section) that is basically a stand. You set the pop or the beer of choice into a circle, then place the chicken over it. The stand holds the chicken up and the can with it. When cooking, the can releases juices that keep the chicken juicy while cooking it thoroughly.The end result is a tender chicken, almost like a rotisserie chicken, without complicated equipment or a lot of work.
Another wonderful thing about beer-can chicken is that you can leave it plain or put whatever spices you want with it. Recently I have fallen in love with blackened seasoning. Found at most grocers, (Hy-vee for us this time) it’s a mixture of paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, pepper and some other spices I can’t remember off the top of my head. When preparing the chicken I covered it with some olive oil and then liberally spread the blackened seasoning on it. I also put about a teaspoon of the blackened seasoning in the beer we were using. That way the flavor gets on the inside of the chicken as well as coating the outside. If cooking beer-can chicken in the oven, place a pan under the chicken and cook it at 350 degrees for an hour and a half. If using the grill cook the chicken on medium to medium-high heat for the same amount of time.
For the side of the night I pulled out some frozen green beans and I thought we were good to go.
Then George and George A. got home.
Now I have to say this, George loves stuffing. For me it’s one of those soggy things that I’m not a huge fan of, but he really can’t get enough. When he heard the night before we were going to have beer-can chicken he looked in vain for stuffing in our pantry since it’s almost always a side we have to go with beer-can chicken. No stuffing. I told him if he really needed to break down he could have some and I would just put it in my blog or I could try to find a recipe to make some. He didn’t want any made because he likes the stovetop kind much more. Nothing more was said on the subject.
When he and his dad got home the next evening he pulled out a box of stuffing his dad had bought at the grocery store that day. I was upset. I wanted to live by the pantry challenge. I truly wanted to eat out of our pantry for a week other than a stark few necessities and I didn’t feel like stuffing was a necessity. In that moment I completely forgot I had said “Oh, I’ll just put it in my blog” a day earlier and completely overreacted. I told him he couldn’t have any. Needless to say that was the wrong answer. Specifically the wrong answer on my part since I had said only twenty-four hours earlier that stuffing would be fine if he really wanted it. Conflict ensued. Over stuffing.
Eventually we got it worked out. There was no stuffing at supper that night, not because I forced it, but because George was no longer in the mood to have stuffing after I nixed it so immediately and so definitely. Because I was so focused on the “rules” of the game I didn’t take into consideration that to George the beer-can chicken wouldn’t be the meal he wanted it to be without stuffing.
For no reason other than wanting to succeed completely at a challenge I created a fight. I forgot that the “rules” are more like guidelines. If you want to be strict you can follow them as strictly as possible but if you’re like me you left a little elbow room. Well, I left the elbow room but then reneged on it the first chance I got and our supper — and part of our night together — paid the price.
Even with the stuffing fight the meal was fine. The chicken turned out great and I have some leftovers for lunch today. The green beans, though not eaten last night also are part of my lunch. And the stuffing is sitting in our cupboard waiting for the next time it’s needed. But I learned that tonight or tomorrow or the next day, if I break down and get an ingredient the world is definitely not going to end. I may even learn something in the meantime.
Have you ever lost it over something small in your kitchen? A pot of water boiling over, a missing ingredient or something else?
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