Great plans thwarted

This weekend went by quickly but I have gotten a lot done. Working away today I suddenly realized that it was 4:30 and I had better get dinner started. We had bought two roasting chickens with the intention of using our fancy rotisserie on our bbq. I really wanted the rotisserie feature on our bbq because my kids are nuts about rotisserie chicken and I thought it would be so handy to have. Despite my enthusiasm, we have not yet used the rotisserie. Ever. We've had this bbq for 1.5 years. So at 4:30 I realize that it takes 2 hours to cook a 3-4 lb bird on the rotisserie... I pull out my birds and realize that they are actually about 6.5 lbs each. I had bought two with grand plans of cooking them both and using the second one for chicken tostadas and some hot and sour soup during the week. Cook once = 3 meals + enough leftovers to likely put together an additional meal or some lunches. But here it is 4:30, I have two ridiculously large chickens that will take a long time to cook and are likely too snapping huge to fit on the rotisserie anyways! I picture one turning and then thunking onto the grill... and I giggle for a minute. Time for plan B... too bad I don't have one! I decide that I still want to use the bbq. It is a nice night and there won't be many more of those, so I decide to cut up the chicken. There are few things I hate more than raw chicken. I don't like the feel, I don't like the taste and I'm a germaphobe. I have never actually cut up a whole raw chicken before. This however does not stop me. I whip out the cleaver and begin. One thigh in and I remember that my french cooking book has a diagram and instructions on how to dismantle the bird. I turn on my faucett with my elbow, sanitize my hands in surgical doctor styleb (see germaphobe reference) and pull out the book. I return to the bird and continue to hack away. In the end it was fairly successful. I'm sure Julia child would have been horrified and it was far from perfect, but it was decent. Next I rubbed it with a bunch of spices and sea salt and threw it on the grill. The carcass looked awfully large and I couldn't stand the idea of waste so I threw it in a pot with some onions and carrots and began some stock. At the end of it all, this is what we had

Memphis style bbq chicken - slow cooked on the BBQ, tender and falling off the bone and basted with BBQ sauce
Cole slaw - chopped up the cabbage the night before and had it ready to go so just threw it together
Sliced tomatoes with walla walla onions, capers, sea salt and a bit of diamond salad dressing. Seriously addictive dish.
Whole wheat penne tossed with galic oil

The entire meal was fantastic! The stock is still cooking. I am now poaching the second chicken so that we have chicken meat for tomorrow's tostadas and a future hot and sour soup. The poaching chicken will also make 8 cups of stock so I think I'll freeze the stock and make soup at some point. There is something very satisfying about being prepared and spending the weekend ensuring that one is ready for the week. I know it will make the week a bit easier to manage and knowing that some dinners are somewhat ready to go, I feel almost calm like. With laundry going, the kitchen clean, the house vacuumed and some of my work finished I feel even better. Now I just need to finish the rest of my to do list....