My absolute weekly “go-to” for dinner is a roast chicken with roasted vegetables. I roast a chicken almost every single week. We love it, and for some reason, the taste just never gets old. It is a great way to get a lot of vegetables in at dinnertime, and I can use the leftover bones to make and freeze homemade chicken stock. It makes your entire house smell amazing, and anyone who walks through the door while it is roasting will immediately think you must be a cook sent straight from Heaven. Another plus: I have found that buying a whole chicken is a few dollars cheaper than buying a chicken that has been cut up. You are being charged for the fact that the butcher cut it, so just buy it whole and save a few bucks and get you something nice for yourself....like a cup of coffee. It is a simple yet elegant meal and always turns out looking beautiful and way more exotic than the time that was put into preparing it.
A few of my tips. (Recipe will follow)
-One whole chicken (I always buy hormone free, no antibiotics, vegetarian fed, and sometimes, I will spend a few extra dollars (and not get that cup of coffee) and buy organic.
-Any vegetable you like-this is the great part! Just open your fridge and pantry and throw on the roasting pan whatever you like/have on hand.
These are the veggies I love to roast with a chicken: onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, asparagus, and carrots, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts. Lately, I have been adding fennel. Fennel is my new love!!!! I always try to have something green on the platter, so if I have asparagus, I roast that, if I have broccoli or brussel sprouts, I roast those. Just have something green, for health and beauty!
My sister makes fun of me, because I love, love, love mashed potatoes! So, I do, on occasion, mash the potatoes instead and then make some gravy from the chicken juices. I do not do this every week, because as we all know, white potatoes basically have no nutrition. As my mother would say, “it is like eating white paper.” However, they taste fabulous. I think I love them because my mom never made them once, my entire childhood. Seriously, not once. So, I love and adore them, and literally have to resist not making them every week. My mother and I fight every single year over the holiday menu, because I insist on making mashed potatoes. She says, we only need one potato, and it will be the sweet potato casserole. I reply, “I am an adult, and I will make mashed potatoes if I want mashed potatoes.” I am not joking, we fight about it every single holiday season. Ok, enough about mashed potatoes. See?! I could go on and on about them!!! It's embarrassing.
So.....I try to roast sweet potatoes more often than using white potatoes. Again, it is just a healthier choice. We eat to live, not live to eat! You can prepare Roast Chicken several different ways. Let your creative chicken juices flow!!! Wait, is that gross? All you have to figure out is the best way you like it. I tend to make Herbed Roast Chicken the most. I love it, it is always perfect. As soon as I pull it out of the oven, I immediately tear off the wings and eat them...I can’t resist! Luke always cuts the chicken up for us, and makes fun of me because he never finds the chicken without its two wings already missing.
Here are a few of my varieties of roast chicken:
-Salt and pepper-it is wonderful and the flavor speaks for itself -
-Herbed Chicken (Salt, pepper, and dried herbs) -usually Herbs of Provence- generously cover it with the herbs.
-Lemon Chicken-(Salt, pepper, garlic, and lemon)- I stuff the inside with lemon slices and garlic. Cover the outside with salt, pepper, and dried basil.
-Cinnamon and Clove Chicken- In the Fall, I love to prepare the chicken with salt, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. It is so amazing. I serve it with homemade applesauce. It tastes like Fall! It is so dreamy!
Basic Recipe for Roasted Herb Chicken:
1 whole Roasting chicken-(the one below is 4.5 lbs.)
2 onions -cut into big chunks (the bigger you make your veggies, the prettier the presentation)
2 sweet potatoes (or white potatoes)-peeled- I leave some skin on-again, just because I think it looks prettier.
2 white potatoes
1-2 crowns of broccoli (or some other green veggie) (below I used brussel sprouts)
5-6 carrots-peeled and cut into large pieces
1 fennel bulb- large dices
-preheat oven to 425 degrees -place the chicken on your roasting rack (if gizzards are still in the chicken, just remove them) -Drizzle olive oil all over the chicken, and then massage oil into the skin of chicken, completely cover- WASH HANDS with soap and water -Generously salt and pepper the inside of the chicken as well as the outside. -Cover with dried herbs inside and out. -Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. (I would begin checking the chicken at 1 hour, you don’t want to overcook, and remember, it will continue to cook slightly after you have taken it out of the oven) Cook until the juices run clear when you slice between the breast and the leg. (a friend taught me to wiggle the legs and if they are loose, the chicken is ready, if they are still very tight and don’t move freely, it needs to roast a little longer) In the picture above, I used fresh herbs from my garden and stuffed the cavity full of basil, oregano, and rosemary.
Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment