Will work for food

We had a fun, but exhausting day on Saturday.

Earlier in the week, I saw a posting on Facebook from a friend asking for help winterizing one of her greenhouses. She promised brunch as an incentive to come help. So bright and early Saturday morning, I headed over to lend a hand. Not only did I get a nice bite to eat, but she also gave me a few fresh eggs, courtesy of her hens (of course it was her hens; if she said her rooster had laid them, I would've been concerned).

After running a few more errands, I headed home to make lunch for our guests. Cori's sister Judi and Judi's husband Herschel and their son Dylan were visiting this weekend, and burgers were on the menu for lunch. When I saw those fresh eggs I had been given earlier in the morning, I had an epiphany: burgers with bacon, a fried egg and avocado. Outstanding!



Cori and Judi's birthday was a couple weeks ago, and Herschel and I had bought them tickets to the Michael W. Smith concert at NIU. So Cori and Judi's parents came over Saturday evening to watch the kids. For the family's dinner before the concert, I smoked a few chickens. I had grilled chicken many times before, but had never done a low 'n slow smoking for chicken.

I halved the chickens and set the smoker up for an indirect cook with cherry wood, 250 degrees.



I expected the cook would take about three hours, but after two and a half hours, the skin on the birds was still pale and moist, not the crispy, bronze colored skin I had seen from other chicken smoked over cherry. As dinner-time was looming, I removed the heat deflector from the Big Green Egg, and boosted the fire up to finish the cook with a nice sear. The chicken turned out well in the end; moist, flavorful and smokey. Thanks to the sear, the skin was good, but I will need to do some more research to figure out what I did wrong, and why the sear was necessary.



After dinner, we left the kids with their grandparents and headed off to the concert. The show was a blast, and everyone had a great time. We rolled in a bit before midnight and, after a totally full day, I collapsed...only to get up bright and early the next morning to be the lay liturgist at the early service at church.