Thinking about the weekend

I have two whole chicken breasts that I purchased recently and I was thinking of doing something different with them. I will split each one of the two breasts into four pieces and grill them, of course. I will place a tray with quartered potatoes directly under them in the grill. This way, all the chicken drippings will fall on the potatoes adding a nice flavor to them. I will buy red potatoes for this experiment.

I will coat the potatoes ahead of time with olive oil, salt pepper, and oregano. I think they will cook very nicely with the chicken fat.

Also, I want to make Yankee beans on the grill.

I will work on this on Saturday morning, weather permitting. I will keep you posted.

Tonight I grilled salmon and pork tenderloin

This afternoon I on my way home I stopped by our favorite supermarket, Adams Fairacre Farm, in Newburgh

to buy a 2.25 lb pork tenderloin and two whole chicken breasts. I will need to plan better for any type of supermarket purchases because at Adams they have a weekly special that they call Customer Appreciation Evening where you get 20% off your purchase. So, if I schedule my visits better I will be getting a better deal. Not bad!

So, back to the tenderloin. Here it is below waiting to be seasoned and placed on the tray. I used the following:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon mustard
• 1 teaspoon Sunny Spain seasoning(Diane's gift)
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard

Cooking chicken with charcoal for the first time

After putting the grill together I decided to go for it. I had purchased a package of six (6) chicken thighs, I think they were thighs.

On the way home from the supermarket I saw a train that had stopped next to the Walden Animal Deli.  I took a few minutes to snap pictures because this doesn't happen every day. The engine was huge.

Going to purchase my first charcoal grill

After reading many blogs, videos, pages, articles and having endless conversations about charcoal grills I decided to take the plunge and buy one. The grill manufacturer is Weber and it is a very well known grill manufacturer. I went to several brick-and-mortar chain stores, Home Depot, Lowe's, and Sears and visited amazon.com and I narrowed it down to the One-Touch Gold 22.5". Weber offers two other models but the Gold 22.5" was the best fit for me and by barbequing needs. After visiting Lowe's and Home Depot I was very disappointed with the selection and the lack of service I received. Well, I went to our local hardware store where they were able to order it for me for the same price as the large chain stores. Hot dog!

After ordering the Weber I drove to the local apple orchard to buy apple wood for smoking my meats. Normally they sell wood chips for $5 - $8 a small bag. I was able to buy lots more wood for the same price AND I helped a local business. The purchase wasn't huge but you understand my point. Here is a picture of the Wright's store.

As you can see they have a variety of options for apple wood purchases. I, of course, went with the smallest option because I will not use it in my fireplace. Here is an image of the actual wood that I purchased.

Look at the bundle of apple wood placed comfortably in the back of the Toyota matrix. It was placed there because it was the safest area for it. After all I didn't want it to get bruised and have it traumatized. Can you tell I have issues?

Next will be picking up the grill and setting it up.