Best damn chicken house in the Pacific Northwest!!
That's my house. In case I wasn't being clear...

41/100

I was going to write about walking a little over a mile today (for the second day in a row) and then swimming and then doing resistance exercises on my arms in the pool. How good it made me feel, etc.

Then? I came home and made the best damn chicken I have *ever* eaten. Seriously. THE BEST. Of course recipe and info to follow (mostly because I want to make you all jealous and show once again that damn it, I'm cool *lol*)

Okay I started with an organic chicken. I set it out about 3 o'clock for an estimated 4:30 pm grilling. At 1:00 I put on some organic spelt/flax, sesame seed bread to bake. I love my bread maker and I have been making a loaf a week. It lasts me all week, is pretty inexpensive and adding the flax and sesame seeds tonight really kicked it up - yum! Plus my neighbor has organic chicken eggs... so LIFE IS GOOD! (insert grin here)

About 4pm I lighted the grill. This is where the story breaks down. I did NOT have that grill ready until 6:00. Seriously. I can't seem to navigate fire in the big green egg or in my fireplace... *lol* I digress. I did finally get the grill at about 325 sometimes around 5:45. The grill was supposed to be 350, but it didn't matter to the chicken. I did direct grilling instead of indirect, so they cooked pretty quickly. What is 'they' you may ask? "They" is my spatchcocked (well really half spatchcocked) chicken. I'd have put in photos of the whole thing, but this guy? Already did. No need to repeat. However, I went farther than this guy did. I also removed the cartilage between the breasts and cut my chicken exactly in half. Trimmed off the excess fat and got out my nucoa (I don't do dairy if I can help it) and made sure both halves of the chicken were dry. I then put butter on both halves and a little under the skin on both breasts. I will say that I didn't use that much butter, maybe a tablespoon on each side. I then dusted both sides and the bottoms with Poultry Seasoning (which was simply amazing) and Butt Rub!I love butt rub above all other seasonings as it has no sugar in it! YUM!!!

I had no idea this was going to turn out so well so I have no 'before' photos of me spatchcocking the chicken or of how it looked before I put it on the grill... but *this* is what it looked like after 45 minutes of cooking and not ONCE opening the lid. The internal thermometer measured 160 in the breast and 180 in the thigh *exactly*. I turned it over for about 1 minute to crisp up the skin then realized it was unnecessary as the skin was already crisp and removed the two halves from the heat. Look at those pretty red coals glowing under the chicken... *drool*

ohhh pretty!

all crispy and juicy!

other side

all plated up!Oh wait... is that organic CORN from the farmer's market I see? Why yes, yes it is...

mmmm  homemade spelt/flax/sesame bread fresh out of the breadmaker!

dessert... organic marshmallow with dark chocolate and organic graham crackers!

ohh look at you, you beautiful, crispy perfectness!

Um. YUM. Seriously this is the best chicken I have ever eaten. It had a smoky flavor, but the skin was crispy, the meat was incredibly juicy and fell off the bone. The bottom carmelized perfectly and without all the extra bones, the chicken was just beautiful and easy to eat.

Super healthy! Super tasty and low in calories. Yay me! AND I exercised today. My goal is to exercise every day for the next 10 days. Doesn't have to be anything crazy, BUT I have this new iPhone app.. I am LOVING it! It's called iTreadmill and it is fantastic. It measures every step, tells me how many calories I've burned, how fast I've walked, how many steps I've taken and the distance I covered in the time I walked. I really like it!

So happy Sunday night to you all! I'm beat! Gonna put away my leftovers for bento tomorrow and going to sleep early. One of my resolutions has been to get into bed by 10... I'm doing pretty well with it... It makes such a huge difference in how I feel the next day!

Peace

MaryKate