Gone Out for Dinner

We decided we really liked cooking on the grill.
by Mil'vardea

Have a campsite-like dinner in our own backyards. Then spend half the night huddling around it, feeding it fodder and telling silly stories until almost one in the morning.

We have a tendency to repeat ourselves if the idea works well the first time, by expanding the old idea to continue it almost as a tradition. Last night was another beautiful night, so we decided to light some citronella candles and brave the mosquitoes to have another cook out last night, this time with dinner and dessert.

We made Rosemary Chicken over the grill, with lovely skewers full of veggies, then s'mores (again) and attempted (unsuccessfully) to pop popcorn over the grill. It's a lot harder then it sounds, for some reason. Anyway, the chicken turned out really good, so I figured I'd share the recipe.

You need:
*One or two good chunks of boneless chicken breast, depending on how many people you're feeding. * Garlic powder * Rosemary * Salt * Pepper * Olive Oil * Lemon Juice * Aluminum foil * Cherry Tomatoes * Zucchini * Onions * Green Peppers

First, start the grill going. Make sure any newspaper, lighter fluid, or whatever you use to get it started burns off before cooking. You want ONLY wood burning under you food, trust me. Second, thaw the chicken out for a couple of hours. This is not necessary, as you can grill it frozen, but it cooks much faster if thawed first. Take the hunks of chicken, and sprinkle just a touch of garlic powder. This is mostly to taste; I use very little, just to punch the chicken up a bit, without it swimming in garlic flavor. Then sprinkle the rosemary over the chicken. You don't want to cover all of it, just about 1/4 of the piece of chicken. Pour a glob of olive oil on the chicken, and rub all those yummy bits into the chicken with your fingers, like your giving it a massage, but just for a few seconds each. Then drizzle lemon juice on it. You want to use about 1 part of lemon juice to four parts of olive oil. If the fire isn't quiet done yet, it's alright, just leave the chicken in the fridge while everything heats up. Next, you want to start on the skewers. Alternate between the tomatoes, zucchini, onions, and green peppers in large chunks on the skewers. We didn't use peppers on ours, because I'm allergic, but I'm sure a lot of other people would love it.

Take a sheet of aluminum foil, and fold up the edges, to make a little fortress to keep the chicken grease from running into the fire. It will dry out your chicken and make it suck. Dump your chicken on the tin foil, making sure to keep some of the olive oil/rosemary mixture around to drizzle on the chicken a few times.

When the chicken is about halfway cooked, take your skewers, and sprinkle them with salt and pepper, then drizzle them with a bit of olive oil. You want to heat them up in aluminum foil first also, before placing them directly on the grill. This will keep them from burning, but heats them up really nice.

As soon as the chicken is cooked all the way through, take the pieces out of the foil, and lay them directly on the grill. It keeps the insides nice and moist, while still giving you those great, crunchy grill marks on the outside. Then take the skewers a few minutes later, and move them out of their foil as well. Grill until the grill marks are prominent on the chicken, then serve it up. Tastes good with rice, warm bread, mashed potatoes, or even cream corn, yummy.

Tada! Then you can grill marshmallows and play truth or dare into the morning, like we did. Enjoy your yummy chicken!

..::heartsinfall::..