My first whole chicken!

I have been wanting to do this for a while. I got the idea from allrecipes.com. The name makes me laugh - Beer Butt Chicken.

I got the chicken out of the plastic wrap, grabbed all the guts out (it's really not that gross), and ran it under a little water. I bought the cheapest can of beer they had at Shell ($1), poured out half of it, and plopped the chicken on the beer can. I then melted about 1/4 stick of butter and mixed in salt, pepper, and garlic powder. I then basted the chicken with the melted, seasoned butter, and put it in the oven at 350 degrees for about an hour and 1/2. I took it out when the temperature deep in the thigh was 180 degrees F. It's that easy! They said to use 2 sticks of butter, one on the chicken and one in the beer can, but I didn't want to use that much butter. I'm sure the chicken would have a lot more flavor if you rub the seasonings into the meat, under the skin, but I couldn't figure out how to do that.

Carving is another story. Videos on the internet make it look SO easy. It wasn't. I ended up with two pretty breasts and the rest very unpretty and all shredded up. I've decided I'm going to make chicken tortilla soup with the shredded up chicken, and fried rice with the breasts.

I really did all of this so I could make homemade chicken stock. I found many recipes. I'm going to follow this recipe sometime in the next week when I make the stock from the chicken bones. Fun!