Let's start this with a very general statement;
I can grill. By which I mean, I can maybe cook you a steak and serve up some veggie kebabs. As long as you have absolutely no preference in your meat temperature and enjoy peppers and onions brushed with olive oil.

My grill and I have a somewhat sordid past. The day after I received the grill as a gift from my parents, I attempted to cook marinated tequila-lime chicken from the North Andover institution known as Butcher Boy. I got as far as opening the bag with a butcher knife when I slipped, cut open my left index finger, and was rushed to the ER by my roommate. I didn't even make it as far as pre-heating the damn grill. Grill - 1. Allie - 0.

So let's just say, I'm not the most skilled with the clunky propane beast that sits outside my apartment, but I have come a bit further since that first attempt. Last weekend, I busted out plum tomatoes, halved and skewered, stuffed with artichoke hearts, parmesan, and goat cheese. The idea may or may not have been borrowed from a Rachael Ray mag, but the execution was there. (And damn, were they tasty.)

But regardless, I remain a novice at cooking in general, and my overall fear of hurting myself/acknowledgment of my clumsiness doesn't ease my mind around a grill.

So this past weekend, as Boyfriend sat in a cold-induced Dayquil coma playing games on his iPod Touch, I decided to go to to the grocery store and tackle something I never had before: Beer Can Chicken.



Beer Can Chicken, I reasoned, killed several birds (no pun intended, but ha) with one can-o-beer.
1. I got to use the Beer Can Chicken contraption in my kitchen that I had never touched, a relic left behind by roommates past.
2. I had to venture to Kappy's and peruse the selection of canned microbrews, another first.
3. I would make Sick Boyfriend chicken noodle soup with the chicken. A small consolation prize for him, considering his Sunday was for once not consisting of champagne, the Sunday Globe, a pack of Parliaments and a few games of bags on our patio. He was miserable and the only thing I could offer was popsicles and a soup promise, so it had to be done.

First up, head to Stop and Shop where I aggressively miss my $50 spending mark every time and end up somewhere in the ballpark of eighty to a hundred bucks. I digress. Groceries are the one thing I don't skimp on. Despite Stop and Shop being grossly overpriced, it is convenient to my house and doesn't not resembe Baghdad on a Sunday afternoon like my favorite discount grocery (cough Market Basket cough).

I picked up a 3.5 or so pound chicken for this event, along with my usual weekly necessities of Greek yogurt, shredded cheese, baby spinach, and milk; and the remained sixty or so bucks was dropped in the produce section on ridiculously expensive things like cherries and avocados, which I cannot live without.

Speaking of necessities, next it was time to visit the liquor store. Kappy's in Medford is an absolutely mecca of booze, and I am somewhat embarrassed/stoked that I no longer get asked for ID here because I am such a familiar face. For said beer can chicken, the beer was a no-brainer. I found a six-pack of orange cans of pale ale, featuring dancing pigs on the label. Yup. Pork Slap Pale Ale it was.
But I was still lingering in the cooler of microbrews. Something else had caught my attention and I knew--while it was not fit for stuffing a chicken, it would certainly be filling my tummy:
Hell or High Watermelon Wheat from the 21st Amendment brewing company was calling out to me in all of its summer glory.

Three things I love--
1. Watermelons
2. Beer
3. Beer that tastes like watermelons, sans seeds.

So of course, I left with two six packs for myself since Boyfriend was only sipping cough syrup these days, and headed back to ClubMed.

In between rounds of Wii Sports with Boyfriend, who was playing from the couch, I got my shit together for this epic grilling experience. First, I had to load up the beer-can-chicken contraption

Step 1.
That took approximately thirty seconds. Guess I'll down this Watermelon beer and have a smoke.

Step 2.
Wash hands post-Parliament. Open and clean chicken. This is the part I truly hate about cooking whole birds. The like package of innards thrown in there is terrifying. Holding the thing up and washing it feels like trying to dance with a decapitated baby. And then you have to "pat dry with paper towels" according to every chicken recipe that has ever existed. I understand why this should happen, but I find explicit wording like this annoying.

Step 3.
Season said chicken. Keeping in mind I'd be using this in a soup later, I kept it relatively simple. I tend to enjoy basic herbs more than in-your-face seasoning anyway. I rubbed the little guy with some olive oil, gave a healthy coating of salt and fresh ground pepper, and chopped the hell out of some fresh rosemary, sage and thyme to sprinkle all over (and saved the rest for the soup).

Step 4.
Put beer can up chicken's butt.
This won't be pleasant for either of you, but must be done.

Step 5.
Pre-heat one half of your grill. Since I have propane, this is easy; I only lit the left side burners. You charcoal enthusiasts out there have to stack the coals on one side or build a mountain range or just go out for takeout because that sounds like way too much work to me.

Step 6.
Place chicken on unheated side of grill. Cover and cook for about an hour and a half or so, depending on the size a-ya bird. Meat thermometer that shit--salmonella is no joke.

The beauty of this is that it was about 15 minutes of prep, and then an hour and half of doing nothing but drinking the rest of my six-pack and smelling delicious herbs being grilled.

In the meantime for me, however, I prepped some soup for Boyfriend McSickly by chopping up some carrots, onions, baby Yukon Gold potatoes, and celery. I threw those in with a couple cartons of chicken stock and let cook in the Crock pot for a while, along with a few sprigs of herbs I had left. I added some pasta shells and the chicken later after it had somewhat cooled and could be pulled apart. I made enough soup for a week and it was fucking delicious, if I do say so myself.

As for the beer-can chicken itself, I thought it came out pretty good for very little work. I just wish someone else was quasi-drunk and enjoyed it as much as me.

Allie - 1.
Grill - 1.
It's on mofos.