Easy Peasy Roast Chicken & Veggies

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I love roast chicken. I just wanna put that out there. Let it marinate and collect the juices. Isn’t she a beauty? I must say, nothing like a whole roast chicken to make you feel like you know your way around a kitchen. Except a roast turkey maybe. But is bigger always better? Hah! Loaded question.

Back to the chicken. This is my first time making a roast chicken so I did a little research (read: googled “roast chicken”) and came across this roast chicken tournament for best roast chicken recipe and ended up making a chicken that was a mixture of all the different recipes.

I don’t have a roasting rack or twine so I used veggies as a rack and this technique of trussing a chicken without twine. I roasted it at 425F for 1 hour and a half. Next time around I will try 1 hour and 15mins because the breasts could have been a bit more moist. I want to try different vegetables as well. This time I used onions, carrots and potatoes. I wonder what butternut squash and roast chicken would taste like?

This is what you need for this recipe:

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My chicken was a little under 5 lbs. Adjust the time according the the size of your bird.

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After tucking the chicken’s wings .. ew ew .. you need to season the inside of the chicken (Don’t forget to take out the little bag of evil inside them). If you don’t season the inside of your chicken it will be a fake chicken whose only seasoned on the outside but then inside she’s just an unseasoned bitch. You don’t want that. So season the inside of your chicken. Add salt and pepper liberally (not conservatively and not politically) and I put in some lemons but this is your chance to look into your soul (or your refrigerator) and use whatever combination you like.

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After you oil the birdie sprinkle trusty rusty salt and pepper and whatever else you have in your spice cabinet. Today my mood was of the seasoned salt and paprika variety.

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To truss or not to truss? That is the question. I forgot to get twine from the store so at first I decided not to truss. Then I decided I wouldn’t let a piece of string rule my life and found a way to truss without anything but the chicken itself (link to the video above, pics of me doing it below, choose wisely 😉 )

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Repeat with the other side and you have trussed your chicken.

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Pop that sucker in the oven at 425F for about an hour until the juice runs clear or a meat thermometer reads at least 165F (stick it in between the leg and the breast).

In the last 5-10 minutes of cooking I roasted some asparagus in the oven with a little olive oil and good ol’ S&P.

Bend the asparagus till it snaps naturally where it should. The bottom part is tough and the leafy top is nice and tender.

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Once the chicken comes out let it chill out and rest for 10mins. It just got out of a hot ass oven so give it a minute to collect its juices and get tender before you cut into it.

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Yum. The carrots burned. That’s why next time around I will reduce the time a little. A good judge of time and temp is using the late and great Julia Child’s method of cooking it found here.

Enjoy!! Let me know what veggies you would use! And subscribe to my blog by typing your email in the box below!! So exciting!! So many exclamation points!!

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2 thoughts on “Easy Peasy Roast Chicken & Veggies

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