Simple Roasted Chicken

I thought I gave myself food poisoning.

More specifically, I thought this chicken gave me food poisoning.

Which was heart breaking because it was so good. It was my first time roasting a chicken of my very own.  I had been pouring over recipes to pop my roasted chicken cherry [don’t ever let me say that again], but in the end I went with simple and classic.  I was so excited for this chicken; I didn’t even plate it outside of what you see above. I sat there at the counter, tearing it apart. Well, tearing half of it apart. I maintained my self control. I’ve been known to eat whole roasted chickens in one sitting. It’s not hard. I pulled the rest of the meat off the bone, tossed the carcass in the crock pot, filled it with water, and put it on low. I wanted a huge batch of broth ready for me in the morning. It kept the house smelling awesome all night.

I went about the rest of my evening–exciting things like vacuuming the entire house and attempting to put up blinds–ending with the 15 minute Ab Ripper X video from P90X [sidenote: have any of you done this? It hurts so good!]. And that’s when the upset stomach happened. Convenient, no? About 4ish hours after eating.  I’ll spare you the details. I was heartbroken. How could a delicious little chicken do such a thing? I don’t own a meat thermometer [shame!], but I’m 98% sure I cooked it properly. I guessed cross-contamination. I’m not exactly graceful in the kitchen.  But then the stomach thing lasted up three nights. It just felt off. I tossed the rest of the chicken + broth just to be safe, but I’m guessing that it wasn’t really the culprit. I must have caught a stomach bug. Poor chicken. I still love you, and I’ll totally make it again.

Between the remaining stomach bug, giving blood yesterday that left me feeling blah, and making mango pancakes that just didn’t turn out, last night was stellar! At least the royal wedding is over, and I have a massage to look forward to tonight before Andrew gets home [yay!]. Bring on the weekend!

Ingredients

• 3-5lb whole chicken, cleaned out, rinsed, and patted dry
• 1 head of garlic
• 1 tablespoon of lemon juice for every pound of chicken
• dried rosemary
• salt and pepper
• oil

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 400º.
2. Break the garlic cloves apart and peel of the white flaky outer coating, but don’t peel them all the way. The cooking process will do that for you. Set them aside.
3. Thoroughly salt and pepper your chicken.
4. Heat a tablespoon of oil or two in the bottom of a dutch oven and brown the chicken on both sides.
5. Once browned, toss in all of the garlic cloves, the lemon juice and cover the chicken with rosemary.
6. Cover with the lid and pop it in the oven.
7. Cook for 1 1/2-2 hours depending on the size of your chicken. I’ve read conflicting stuff all over that the internal temperature should be between 160-180º. The juices should also be clear when you cut into it. I left mine in the oven for almost 2 hours just because I had the lid and didn’t want to risk it. The result was super moist chicken, but not the most crispy skin. You could always take the lid off for the last 30 minutes or so.