What’s cooking on your grill these hot summer days? A favorite meal we had this past weekend was chicken drumsticks on the grill. With a little prep time, chicken drumsticks are tasty, healthy and I love that they are affordable to feed to a crew of people. Our meal was complete with watermelon, corn on the cob, Nana’s homemade potato salad and her Jello mold. It was an All-American prairie meal. If you don’t have a Jello mold, you might not live on the prairie.
People covet chicken breasts but the drummies get left behind. These drumsticks I bought on sale and you can’t go wrong with them on the grill.
I used 24 oz. of Coca-Cola on…
15 drumsticks.
I kept the skin on a few for those that can afford the calories like our teenage son but the rest I cut the skin off. I love skinless chicken drumsticks. Dark meat with flavor. Yum.
I covered and put the marinating meat in the refrigerator in the morning to soak for evening grilling.
The Coca-Cola marinate is my mom’s trick of the trade and our son watched a Food network show on it once with her. If I don’t marinate meat in Coca-Cola, Hunter thinks there is something wrong. On other blogs, I have seen Dr. Pepper, root beer and even Sprite used as meat marinate.
After a full day and as the grill heated I poured the Coca-Cola off and sprinkled seasoning over the drumsticks. Whatever combination you like of salt, black pepper and garlic works. I used “beef” seasoning on chicken. Call me a rule breaker. I am.
My husband, the self-proclaimed family grill master (and a good one at that), grilled up the drumsticks and added a few marinated chicken breasts his mom brought over to our house.
We always use a meat thermometer for easy, safe and fool proof meat on the grill. It beeped when the chicken reached the safe, cooked temperature of 180F.
We loaded up our paper plates and headed to the deck for a beautiful summer evening meal on the prairie.
The chicken drumsticks were very moist, flavorful and tasty. My farmer brother Robbie was visiting for a well-deserved couple days off from spraying crops. In his “spare time”, which means very late at night, he watches the Food network. He sounded like a prairie version of Bobby Flay talking to me about the “flavor profile” of the chicken which made me feel like I had accomplished something. Mostly, he was happy to be fed. Aside from teasing him a bit, it was so much fun to have Robbie visit and he worked Hunter in basketball a few times a day which led to a tiring and challenging few days for our teenager. He’ll be happy and thanking Robbie come basketball season. For now, he is just sore from the new drills he learned.
More family summer meals on the deck will happen this week in between the girls kicking off swimming lessons this morning and Hunter’s baseball games. I’m always looking for new meal ideas.
What’s cooking on your grill on these hot summer days?
I’m a day late (and probably a dollar short, as the saying goes) but I’m linking up to Beyer Beware for some other great meal ideas for this week.
I’ll have my Wordless Wednesday link up ready to go for you to join tonight. After hosting a crew for 4th of July, we have plenty of pictures to share and I am sure you do too.
Katie
I am seeing more and more recipes marinating with soda. I have never tried it. I will have to try it!
Looks like you and the family had a wonderful Holiday weekend. 🙂
Two things:
1. For our annual block party this past weekend, Leslie did pork tenderloin in rootbeer for pulled pork sandwiches. YUM.
2. In your first photo, I love seeing the red Jello mold in the background!
Kate, I seasons some porkchops last night and added some flavored rice and steamed asparagus with butter to the meal. We ended with strawberry shortcake! My youngest, 6, wasn’t sure he wanted to try a dessert that reminded him of that girl with red hair (ewww, girls!) but ended up liking it. The cool whip was too hard to resist. (No, I didn’t do homemade this time, but it was still good!) The drummies look yummy! 🙂
Love soda as marinade. Also love that Montreal Steak Seasoning. It is my ultimate favorite in everything! Thanks for sharing on Hunk of Meat Monday!
I love using soda and frequently use root beer. We have been grilling a lot of burgers and brats lately.
Looks great! I am not from the prarie, but sure have jello mold ;)It must be a Midwest thing.