Beer Can Chicken

Whoever came up with 'beer can chicken' is genius.  My dad bought a whole chicken and I wanted to try something new.  I remembered I had this recipe bookmarked for a while.  I decided to roast it instead of bbq and changed it around a bit to adapt to my liking but the basic concept is there.

Ingredients:

one chicken cleaned (about 4-5 pounds)

1/2 cup butter

1 tbsp paprika

1 1/2 tbsp Mrs Dash seasoning

1 tbsp garlic powder

lots of pepper

a little bit of salt

one can of beer (but you're only using half the can, so feel free to drink the other half)

*I kind of eye all my seasonings, but this is about how much I use. 

A couple hours before I started cooking the chicken, I rubbed it with salt&pepper, Mrs Dash season, and a bit of garlic powder.  I let it sit and marinate in the fridge for a couple of hours before cooking.  Also, if you can peel back a bit of the skin of the chicken, season under there also.  I do that since I don't eat the skin of the chicken and I still wanted it to be seasoned.  

When you're ready to cook it, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  

1. Pam spray your casserole dish and the beer can so it's easy to pull out when you're done

2. Melt the butter and add the garlic powder, paprika, Mrs Dash, and the S&P.  Pour half of this concoction into the half empty beer can.  Set the other half aside.

3. Put the beer can into the chicken and stand it up in the casserole dish.  Make sure your chicken is not hanging over the sides of the casserole dish.  You don't want the juices dripping out onto your oven

4. Brush the rest of the butter mixture onto the chicken.  I saved some to brush on half way thru the cooking process. Make sure you brush underneath the wing and in every single crevice of the chicken.

5. Cook the chicken for an hour, depending how big your chicken is. Its about 15 mins per pound or until the internal temperature reaches 160 degrees. 

This is the chicken pre cooked:

I forgot to take pictures of the final product right when it came out the oven.  By the time I had remembered my mom had hacked into it. But I leave you with the picture I snapped of my plate

I love how golden brown it got. It was nice and moist, even the white meat part! The boyfriend gave me a two thumbs up on this :)

I also roasted some broccoli while I had the oven on.  If I could chose one vegetable to eat for the rest of my life, this is it. 

All I did to roast it was toss it in some olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon pepper. Throw it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.  

Dinner was done and ready in about an hour.  I having a whole chicken because you can use it in various meals.  The next day, I used the chicken to make a delicious sandwich. 

I've been super busy lately with school so I haven't had a chance to cook.  I'll be posting some restaurant reviews soon so stay tuned!