A few months back we went with our friends to an event held at a local gun center.  Before you gasp, no I don’t approve of guns-in fact, Steve and I, despite the recent break-in, are against anyone but the military and police having them on hand.  But that’s just our opinion and we know here in AZ we are the minority.

Back to the blog-while at this event, which all proceeds went to a local children’s charity, my GF and I decided to buy a hand made ceramic chicken roaster.  They were very pretty and what interested us most was this:

We had always wanted to make the famous beer can chicken but were a tad leery considering the use of a can in either our oven or BBQ-so this seemed to be a nice compromise.

Turns out we were right!  The cans are toxic-think the colors on the can smoking right into your bird!

This bowl resembles a bundt pan but the middle is cup-like and holds about 1 C of whatever liquid you’d like to baste your bird from the inside out!

My GF wanted to try it with her poppycake recipe.  Trouble is-you have to put it in the oven or grill COLD.  The first thing I did was use a bottle of DH’s Heinekin.  I also added some root veggies on the bottom.  It took 2 hours at 325, but it came out incredibly flavorful and moist.  The outside skin-crisp.

The next try I used some de-alcoholized wine.  We had opened a bottle and between DH and I-we had 1/2 the bottle left.  It also was really tasty.  That time I put some quartered red potatoes, onion slices and carrots on the bottom.  I also seasoned the chicken a bit more aggressively with minced garlic, smoked sea salt and lemon peel.

Tonight, I’ve decided that since those brussel sprouts looked so good at Costco-I’m going to halve those and use some pumpkin ale.

Remember-the best part of your working kitchen items is in your head!