Five Reasons For Take-out

1.   You use up someone else's electricity to cook.  My stove is a big one with two ovens.  The smaller and cheaper-to-use one has lost it's ability to acquire and maintain a relatively even temperature.  The larger of the two is HUGE and takes 30 minutes to heat up.

Although I LOVE my Breville Oven to the moon, sometimes it is just too small.  Enter George and Suzie (OurAwesomeTravels) who cook practically everything on their Weber Q.  I've mentioned this before.  In fact, I cooked the most amazing chicken a few weeks ago, remember?

2.  There's no prep ... no mess ... no fuss.  Just drive up, turn off the diesel engine so they can hear your order and in a few short minutes, dinner is served!!  NOT as simple is finding a small enough chicken for the BBQ, washing and cleaning it inside and out, drying it off and sprinkling with the seasoning of your choice.

It went so well last time, why not try it again?  I bought the smallest bird I could find, went through all the motions and headed to the grill.  I had a fleeting thought about the gas canister.  I would LOVE to find one of those small propane bottles I could travel with, but alas, I have to use those tiny green things.

I've no idea how long they last or how much cooking I can do before it runs out.  There's no window to look through.  I unceremoniously dumped my chicken on the grill.

3.  There's no waiting with take-out.  Not much anyway ... grab it and go.  With a 5 pound chicken, you've got at least an hour to wait.  I set the timer, set myself on the couch and waited, with a watchful eye on the smoke from the Q.

4.  There's no, or at least little chance of food poisoning with take-out.  There's a BIG chance of ptomaine if your chicken isn't cooked sufficiently.  When the timer rang, I headed out with the collection pan, ready to dig in to some delicious juicy barbecued meat.

Wasn't I surprised to find it almost as raw as when I put it on the grill.  Oh for crying out loud!!  The gas can must have run dry.  I might have checked halfway through, but you're never supposed to open the lid.  After that prime rib fiasco, I wasn't doing THAT again.

I found another bottle of fuel, screwed it in and hit the GO button.  The flames seemed much smaller than before.  This doesn't look right.  I disconnected it and connected another bottle with the same result.  Okay then .... I shut the lid and hoped for the best, setting the timer for ANOTHER hour.

5.  Your food is always well done with take-out.  There's no raw in restaurants, especially the food-to-go type.  I figured there was no need to worry about how long it cooked, after all, I had my trusty thermometer with which to check for the 180 degree mark.

This time I checked for the sizzle twice, to assure myself it was cooking.  The bell rang an hour later and I removed the bird.  Looks pretty yummy, right??  How could I possibly fail?  By the way, that's a lemon I cut up and put inside for additional flavor.

In the end, it didn't quite get done ... probably due to the additional flavor.  I rather like fall-off-the-bone chicken and this wasn't it, but by then it was almost bed time.

6.  Take-out is quick (see number 3).  Actually, there are more than six reasons for me to get take-out.  It's certainly quicker than the 2-1/2 hours I spent trying to cook this chicken.  At least I wasn't using up any electricity, but my chances of food poisoning were high, it having set on the cold grill for an hour.  Luckily after eating one leg, I felt fine and think I will survive the rest.

Now that THAT'S out of the way, I can pack the grill in the rig.  I should do fast-food for the rest of the week, but how about some more tamales instead????