Grilled Chicken etc

This morning was MOPS. I woke at 3:30 am and couldn't go back to sleep. My mind often kicks into gear and there's no stopping it, so I'm tired. I spoke - telling a piece of my story, and why I'm often called "The Calendar Girl" (not that I've posed naked for a calendar - cute movie by the way).

It hit me about the timing of MOPS and next week starting Holy Week. What would Christianity be without the cross and resurrection?! and yet we 'celebrate' other holidays moreso and especially Christmas. It's so easy to embrace a baby and shepherds and sheep and kings and presents! Who wants to embrace a cross?!

I'll talk more on this later. If you buy the dozen egg thing (like advent) at a Christian store, today would be the first day for opening a plastic egg and seeing what miniature is inside and reading about it - often from a Gospel story.

Last night I did a dry run on grilling a chicken, before doing a large amount for our supper group Sunday evening (why is it called a 'dry run'?). Travis had done it for us awhile back and I had posted a picture of the 'Dancing Chickens'? So yesterday he instant messaged me the how-to along with the 'whys' (the science). It's so good, and easy, and I'm going to be doing it a lot.

He marinated/brined the chickens for about three hours. Since I did one chicken I cut his recipe in thirds. Here's his recipe:

1 gallon water (1 qt hot in the beginning to dilute the salt and sugar, then add cold, including ice)

3/4 c salt

2/3 c brown sugar

1/2 c soy sauce

herbs (thyme, rosemary, bay, pepper, onion, garlic)

olive oil (I think I forgot this)

Submerge with a weighted plate in a bucket (I did the one bird in a ziplock bag) for three hours.

Rinse well.

Have the grill preheated hot.

Have hickory chips (mesquite is too powerful for this) presoaked and ready to add to grill with the chicken.

Have a beer can for each chicken - emptied of half its beer - and punch more holes in its top. Put the chicken over the can, which will hold it up for the entire cooking time on the grill.

Squeeze a lemon half over the chicken and put the other half in the neck cavity.

Sprinkle with some herb mixture (I used our no-salt mixture).

Travis has a grill with 2 burners and kept one turned off with the wood chips on the 'high' side. I have 3 burners, so kept one on high where the chips stayed, the middle on low, and the third burner off, where I put the chicken (and a winter squash). We'd check the temperature, trying to keep it around 300-350 degrees, and periodically turned the birds. You can't have a burner on under the birds or you'll have flare-up flames!

One bird is done in an hour. Travis cooked the three birds in a little over two hours. I'm going to be cooking four birds Sunday (and it looks like it might be snowing!) so I'm going to allow for at least 2 1/2 hours.

I did the winter squash along with it. You could roast sweet potatoes with it, which are really good done on the grill (skin on of course!) And oh, leave the skin on the chicken too!

Brining initially pulls water out of the meat while pushing salt in. The salt denatures the proteins, which means that they can't coil up as tightly when they cook, so then the proteins don't squeeze as much liquid out of the meat, leaving you with a moister bird. So, although brined meat starts out with less moisture, it actually has more at the end of cooking because it hasn't been wrung out like a sponge.