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My kids love roast chicken and I often cook them on a bed of onion slices or roast vegetables but a friend mentioned how tender and perfect hers comes out each time she cooks it using a beer can; I … Continue reading
The weather has turned, the leaves are changing color and falling. Sundays are often our days that my husband or I make a more elaborate or time consuming meal in the cooler months as the summers are picnics at the town green or back yard barbecues. Though we often go to church in the morning and cub scouts on some Sunday afternoons, there isn’t the same daily rush. There’s no school, no work (well, unfortunately not lately for my husband), no homework, usually no client meetings, just violin practice. This is one of my favorite fall/winter dinners: a whole roasted chicken with root vegetables. It takes quite some time to prep— peeling, cutting, chopping, but really the final result is heaven at home. The boys love it but might not eat each and every vegetable. They seem to like more and more the more often we have it.
Roast Chicken with Root Vegetables
Preheat oven to 425F. Rinse and pat dry chicken. In large bowl coat chicken with olive oil, salt and pepper and half the chopped thyme. Stuff cavity with celery and onion ends, trim to fit.
Place onion slices in the center of a roasting pan in a single layer. Place chicken on top. In bowl take several groups of vegetables and coat with olive oil, remaining thyme, salt and pepper. Place around chicken. 
Roast for 20 minutes then reduce heat to 350F. Roast for at least and hour. (If the vegetables are crowding the chicken you can roast some on a separate cookie sheet on the rack beneath the chicken. It’s also nice to separate the vegetables from chicken pan about 20 minutes before done, so they get slightly crispy. So they roast evenly, I like to turn vegetables every 20 minutes or so, but that’s optional— once is good. ) It’s done when temperature of thigh is 165F. 
If it just under it should be ok as it will cook a little more when you take it out to rest. When chicken is ready, place on cutting board for 10 minutes to rest before carving. I don’t make a gravy or sauce since I find it’s so tasty on it’s own it’s unnecessary. Stuffing the cavity will help breast retain juiciness. 
This is a win-win dish for the whole family. Comforting home cooked meal on a chilly evening. Savor the time you have with the kids. One good thing— though it takes some time to prepare and more time to cook, it’s easy to clean up and you have some time while it’s in the oven to play.
I’m reading Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbara Kingsolver at the moment and not that I think I have the will to go completely local like she did in the book, but I do try to make a conscious and conscientious effort to buy locally. And one of those decisions led to us joining the CSA at a farm in town. Well, one of my friends went away this week and I got to reap the rewards. I got her CSA bin. And this week’s bin was chocka-block full of kale, basil, green beans, purple beans, sugar snap peas, mustard greens, arugula, kohlrabi, beets, green onions, herbs and flowers. So many delicious fresh vegetables! Actually a bit too many for us to use while fresh and lovely with all that is planned, so I gave some arugula to another friend. 
I decided to continue on my buying-local streak since I needed some eggs and milk so I went to our regular egg farm, Stietzel’s but it just closed so I rushed up to another wonderful farm, Holbrook’s, before they shut. Problem is when I go here it’s like I’m in a local produce and dairy shopaholic’s heaven. Sort of like when I go shoe shopping. I need to just back away from those gorgeous gladiator sandals that I can’t afford right now. I don’t need them. Just like, I didn’t need all the offerings at Holbrook Farm—and they have a lot to offer.
Since I had my bounty of veggies from the CSA, I wasn’t tempted by the vegetables here, but I got some local milk, sausage, yogurt, and I really went a little overboard and bought a chicken from them. Not that I don’t want to buy local or didn’t want to buy a chicken, but i was shopping for that night’s dinner. I thought I’ll roast it (it was raining and seemed like the perfect thing to make for dinner on a dreary night) EXCEPT that it was already past 6 when we got there. I don’t know what I was thinking. By the time we got home, dressed the chicken, etc… Needless to say, we ate very late.
I was lucky enough to get a headless chicken so preparing it was relatively easy. I stuffed the cavity with celery and garlic scapes. I put sea salt, pepper, chopped fresh sage (about 1 Tbsp), chopped fresh thyme (about 1 Tbsp) and olive oil on the chicken. Then I lay it on a bed of garlic scapes and put it in a 450 F preheated oven for 20 minutes. I turned the oven to 325F and it continued for about an hour plus until it read 165F with instant-read thermometer.
I threw in some new potatoes to the roasting dish about 45 minutes into it. They were simply coated in olive oil, salt and pepper.
Well, I had this gorgeous bunch of kale to start. 
Last few weeks there hasn’t been enough of it to feed 4 or 5 of us so I add it to other things, but this week there was heaps and I got the added benefit of my friends harvest. 
I stripped the leaves off the stalks with finesse, I had the steamer all ready, but once it was in, I got a little distracted by one of my sons and I overcooked it. Kale Fail! Kale takes longer than spinach, chard, beet greens to cook, but I mean when the lovely silver-sage green is now a khaki olive-brown you know it’s long gone. I tried fixing it with some soy and sesame which my eldest took to, but my youngest two hated it and I don’t blame them, so did I.
At least my kids enjoyed the chicken, beans and roasted potatoes. They went to bed very late but we had a great dinner all from local farms (ok, the kale wasn’t so great). 
Note to self: Next time, save the roasting chicken for when there’s time and pay attention to the kale!
