Beer Can Chicken

Ingredients:
1 4-6 pound whole chicken.
1 can of beer (you can use whatever beer you want but we use Modelo Especial)
Seasoning that you like

My dad made this for us when we were visiting at Christmas and it was SO GOOD I’ve made it twice since then. He BBQ’d his but I baked mine. Either is good.

For the seasoning I use garlic powder, Garlic Dude Dust and pepper. Just clean the chicken then dry it, season it, open the can of beer and dump 1/4 out, place the can in a roasting pan, push the chicken down onto the can using the legs to support it, then bake at 350 degrees for 1 1/4-2 hours or until your thermometer reads at least 160 degrees.

I’m not even kidding, guys, this is SO easy to make. It’s like five minutes of prep then let it be. When it’s done I let it rest for about 10 minutes then cut it up. Although it’s so tender that you only have to cut the breasts off, the rest of the chicken will just fall apart. I pull all the skin off and set it aside to use when making chicken stock (will post that recipe soon!) and since the chicken cooks upright all the fat drains off and you are left with lean, flavorful, tender and juicy breasts. *giggle*

My dad made leeks and green beans to go with it so that’s what I made too. I took green beans, leeks, a tablespoon of olive oil, salt, pepper and Garlic Dude Dust and sauteed it till the green beans were cooked but firm and BAM! Complete meal.

I haven’t gotten the nutritional facts together for this yet but the only fat you end up eating is from the tablespoon of olive oil in the green beans and I made enough for 8 servings so even that fat is a pretty small amount. It’s just protein and green veggies and SO GOOD.

If you make it, let me know what you think, what you did differently or what you’d do to make it better.

Enjoy!

Introducing Danica

We got Kumo a sister. We’ve wanted to get him a playmate for awhile now and had been looking at puppies and dogs online and decided last Saturday to drive to the Salinas shelter where we got Kumo just to look and see if we could find a puppy. We tried two other dogs first, a 10 month old Mastif and a tiny lab mix puppy. The Mastif was SO CUTE and already as big as Kumo but when we brought him into the pen next to where we had Kumo, he was REALLY aggressively barking and growling at Kumo. Then we tried the puppy which was a COMPLETE SPAZ and spent 10 minutes chewing anything that came within 10 feet of his mouth. And peeing. And barking.

Then we tried Danica and she came in the pen and crawled in between Ben’s legs and put on her cute face. And we were hooked. We introduced her to Kumo and they did pretty well together. There were two moments, one in the pen and one in the room before we left, where she got a bit snippy with Kumo but I think it was just because Kumo was really excited and once he got a little too close to her neutering incision. But the girl has spunk for sure, that was clear right away. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she ends up being the alpha even though we have taken steps like feeding him first, allowing him to walk in front of her and out the doors before her. But I just figure they’ll work it all out eventually.

We weren’t prepared to be bringing a puppy home THAT DAY but we had pretty much everything we needed left over from Kumo anyway. Crates, toys, bowl… all we needed was a NAME. When we adopted Kumo we had to wait four days for him to be microchipped, fixed and the last of his shots and it took the entire four days to come up with his name.

So on the way home we started throwing out names. We knew just from meeting her that it would have to be a strong, sassy female name. Ben threw out Danica right away and I liked it but we didn’t want to jump at the first name.

Me: What about Seven of Nine!
Ben: Well we’d have to call her Seven, not Seven of Nine.
Me: What about Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One.
Ben: *sigh*
Me: What?! I’m just throwing stuff out there!

And then Cassidy’s head exploded from the geek overdose. What can I say, I love my Star Trek.

We ended up going with Danica because it fits our theme. Our cat Hans’ full name is Hans Devise Stuck after the Hans Device, a racing neck brace, and Hans Stuck, a famous German race car driver. Kumo is named after the Kumho brand of racing tires. We dropped the ‘h’ so it would be easier for the kids in his Kindergarten class to spell his name.

So Danica just made sense.

So, blog friends, welcome our newest family member Danica Hirsch:

Treat please.

Breakfast @ 6:30AM: I need to work more protein into breakfast. Even if it means getting up earlier to cook something at home. I don’t WANT to do that though. When I start P90x I want to start having a Shakeology before I leave the house or on the way to work. That’s 17 grams of protein, 17 of carbs and only 150 calories! I also forgot flax seed meal AND my vitamin today. DOH!

1/3 cup of Danon Light & Fit Vanilla Yogurt
1/2 Fuji Apple
1/2 cup Puffins Peanut Butter Cereal

Calories: 168
Carbs: 20
Fat: 1
Protein: 4

Snack @ 9:30AM: I forot to take a shot before I ate it! DOH! I’m new to this! I’m sure I’ll start to remember in no time!

5 Ellie Krieger lemon shrimp
1/4 cup Ellie Krieger Soup cream & Chives Smashed Potatos

BANG!

Last Monday we missed our first Intermediate Dog Training class because Kumo was having some ‘potty issues’. In order to be in this Monday’s class we had to first make up that missed week and because Amy loves Kumo more than most parents love their kids, she let us come in last Sunday for a private lesson.

Have I mentioned how much I love Amy before? Because I do, a lot. She’s absolutely adorable. Kumo loves her even more though. When we get into the parking lot at PetSmart he starts to whine and attempts to climb out the window. I can’t exactly see his thoughts but I imagine it’s Kumo and Amy running towards each other in slow motion with Bolero playing softly in the background.

We got through the basic new commands rather quickly so Amy was teaching us some tricks to work on with him for fun. One of the tricks was pointing your finger at the dog and giving a loud verbal “BANG” which the dog responds to by laying on his side and playing dead. Ben was giddy watching this new trick. He had a huge grin on his face and I could clearly imagine him at the dog park showing Bob, and anybody else who showed up, this awesome new trick that Kumo had learned.

Amy mentioned that she had worked on the same trick the week before so while all the other dogs had a whole week to learn it, we’d be back the NEXT day so in order to not be shown up by all the other dogs, we’d have to get on it!

Amy: All the other dads had all week to practice!
Ben: We’ll get it!
Amy: Yeah, he’s such a smart boy! He’ll have it in no time!
Ben: Because he’s a GOOD BOY!
Amy: Yes he is! He’s a good smart boy!
Me: Yeah! And Ben will be home all day tomorrow BANGING THE DOG!
Ben: ….
Me: WHAT!?
Ben: HONEY!
Me: OH! OOPS!
Ben: *glare*
Me: *giggle*

And that is why often times when Ben has to leave the house he tries to lock me in the crate and take the dog with him instead.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

I was originally going to write something eloquent, like what John Armstrong wrote, about this awesome day. Something graceful, full of meaning, faith and excitement for what the immediate and long term future has in store for us. Something that shows how awesome I think it was to have been able to cast a vote that lead to this historic event.

Then I decided on a whim to check my flickr stats for the first time in quite some time and I saw that the following image’s stats have shot up 300% in the last two days. And it dawned on me that WHO AM I KIDDING!? I’m neither graceful nor eloquent. So I leave you with the same sentiment and image from when I cast that first primary vote back in February of 2008:

*Title Quote: John F. Kennedy