My First Roast Chicken

Tonight I embarked upon roasting a whole chicken. It was 7:30 and I had not even really given dinner a thought yet. Husband was in town at a meeting, so I was just getting some things done around the house and dinner wasn't on my mind. When I did finally give it a thought, I realized the only meat we had that wasn't frozen was the whole chicken we bought today. So, roast chicken it was. I used Ina Garten's recipe "Jeffery's Roast Chicken" that she makes for her husband every Friday night. Let me just tell you that this was one of the best chickens I have ever eaten. The recipe was perfect as was the chicken. It was crispy on the outside and moist on the inside. The vegetables surrounding it were awesome too. This will be my go to recipe for every roast chicken I do.

Here's the recipe (c/o Ina Garten "How Easy is That"): You need- 1 4-5 lb roasting chicken, 2 lemons, 1 whole head of garlic, cut in half crosswise, and 2 Spanish onions cut into thick slices (I used white).

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Remove and discard all of the chicken giblets and pat the outside dry. Cut the lemons into quarters and place 2-3 quarters in the cavity along with the garlic. Salt and pepper the inside. Tie the legs of the chicken together and tuck the wings underneath. Brush the chicken with evoo and then liberally salt and pepper the outside. Place the chicken in a small roasting pan. Coat the remaining lemons and onion slices with 2 tbs of evoo 1 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp of salt, and add them to the pan close to the chicken. Roast the chicken for 1 hour and 15 minutes until the juices run clear when you cut between the leg and thigh. Cover the chicken with foil and let rest for 10 minutes.

At this point you can make a sauce with the remaining juices. I didn't do that this time because it was 9:30 and I was ready to eat, but here's the link to the Ina recipe that makes the sauce. There's also more details on roasting the chicken if you want them on the link.

This recipe was so easy and so good. You have to try it.

I didn't have a roasting pan so I used a deep baking pan.

Final Product!

Husband couldn't stop eating it!

Enjoy!