Last weekend I went to Chicago and tried some really good food. We started off at Nando’s Peri-Peri for lunch.  Nando’s is a South African restauarant chain that is really popular world wide but only has restaurants in the US in Chicago and DC.  I ordered 1/2 peri-peri chicken with peri-peri fries. Delicious but a little spicy (pictures courtesy of Nando’s, we were too hungry to take any photos!).  I just want them to open in NYC.

Then it was off to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs beat the Padres and have the obligatory hot dog. The hot dog was ok  but I really like the stadium.

For dinner, we of course had to have deep dish pizza.  We had a bunch of recommendations and ended up choosing Giordano’s, which was really good. But man is that pizza cheesy. There was cheese in the crust! I liked it but I am a bigger fan of thin crust, New York style pizza.

Finally for a late lunch the next day, following a visit to the Aquarium,

we went to Epic Burgers.  It is a cool concept where you build your own burger: first you select your protein, then choose which “free toppings” you want (like lettuce and tomatoes) and then choose which extra toppings you want (like avocado and bacon). They also have excellent milkshakes.

I got a beef burger with lettuce, tomatoes, cheese and bacon along with fries and a nutella milkshake. Mom got a turkey burger with lettuce, tomatoes, cheese and avocado.

Thanks for checking out our blog.  Read below for the story of how we created it, or just for some ideas on what to cook, keep reading (this is Max; Alex is still away at sleepaway camp)

Along with the regular barbecue fare we cooked over the July 4 weekend, I (Max) decided to roast a chicken for dinner and for left overs. We had a bunch of lemons so I decided to make roast lemon chicken. (We have been buying spatchcocked lemon rosemary chicken at Trader Joe’s and I wanted to try to recreate that.

I sliced two lemons into 1/2 inch slices and laid them in the bottom of a roasting pan.  The point was that they would keep the bottom of the chicken from sitting in its own fat.

Then I rinsed the whole chicken with cold water, removed the stuff in a little sack (the liver, etc.) and patted the chicken dry.

Then I put a little olive oil on the chicken, salt and peppered  it, drizzled it with lemon juice and put lemon slices on top and in the cavity of the bird. Then I washed my hands really well and put the chicken into the oven for an hour and a half at 350 degrees. I check to see if it was done by poking the thickest part of the thigh to see if still red…it wasn’t

When we ate it, it was pretty good but not as lemony as I thought it would be. I think the secret is probably marinating it in some lemon based marinade to really give it flavor.  To be honest, the Trader Joe’s chicken tasted a little better.