Well..... cooking that chicken last night ended in a pretty big disappointment.

Everything went well as far as I could see.... smoker ran well - took a bit longer than I thought.... but I was not expecting what happened at the end..... Cooked it as usual - planned on popping it in the oven to crisp up the skin - pulled the chickens off the smoker and they were literally falling apart - after broiling for ~10 minutes, I pulled the pan out of the oven and noticed that the skin had disintegrated!!! Let it cool - went to pull a leg and the whole bird just fell apart --- lifted up the breasts and the backbone just fell apart - it didn't even move off the bottom of the pan..... Meat was 'flavorful', but incredibly mushy.... Boy --- did I fuck up.

Thinking about it last night --- the only thing I could come up with is all the acid in the pineapple juice and OJ 'ceviched' the meat during the 40 hour marinade...... Googling around this morning and sure as shit, I find "The acids and enzymes in the marinade break down tough fibers and tenderize the meat, which makes it soft and melty after it's cooked. But if you keep it in the marinade for too long, it over-tenderizes the meat so that it has no texture and falls apart when cooking." Fuuuuuck..... what a rookie mistake.....

So.... I learned something out of this experience..... Just stick with rubs when smoking --- and if you feel like you HAVE to marinade, no more than 24 hours.

I owe my neighbor a new chicken.

The meat is still edible - and as it cooled, it seemed to firm up. I'm thinking I'm gonna make a batch of chicken enchiladas and some chicken salad with whats left of mine.

Thats where they came from on wednesday....

Yeah --- I held back from using the excuse 'it must have been the chicken since thats the first whole bird I've had from SW'..... I knew that wasn't the case.....

Oh yeah . . . pineapple will do that, it will disintegrate meat.

Live and learn brother, plus it's still usable. With all the successful cooks, one minor let down is no big deal. Next batch of huli huli, try grilling it. that's what the Locals do.

steve why not get some vac pac bags and seal them, toss in in freezer when ready pop in microwave 1 min

Following up on yesterday . . . .

This morning I pulled the frozen breakfast sandwich out of the freezer and microwaved it for about four minutes at 50% power. I just couldn't seem to get the center of it warmed up, and by the time I did the outside was basically molten English muffin leather.

So today I made six more, but decided to do it a little differently. I toasted the muffins with a spray of olive oil on them, scrambled eight eggs with dried onion flakes and Tony Chachere's seasoning, then baked the eggs along with six sausage patties. The result:

So . . . my theory is that if I assemble it "inside out" like that, then which I microwave it the egg and the sausage will get hot without overcooking the muffin. Then after it's warmed up, I can flip it around to eat. Who knows, we'll see.