Winner Winner Chicken Dinner, Mar 2

I had my usual smoothie for breakfast, but I didn't have it until noon because I was working on other stuff in the morning & got distracted.

I roasted a whole chicken for dinner. This guide over at the NY Times has excellent information about different ways to prepare and roast the bird.

After thawing, I splayed the chicken and then rubbed it inside and out with a homemade mix of:

• 1 Tbsp garlic
• 1 Tbsp pink Himalayan salt
• 1 Tbsp dried rosemary
• 1 Tbsp dried tarragon
• 1 Tbsp dried thyme
• 1 Tbsp black peppercorns
• 2 juniper berries
• about 1/4 cup of the pesto I made back on Feb 13
• about 1/2 cup of dijon mustard

I put them all into one of my Ninja smoothie cups and blended it up until it was smooth. It made more than I needed for the chicken, so I made sure to put about half of it into another container before rubbing the chicken to save it for another use. (Might be yummy with pork chops?)

Surprisingly, the giblets were not in a bag inside the cavity; they were just in the cavity all together by themselves. I wrapped them in foil and put them onto the rack in the pan with the chicken.

Apparently, this is the first time I've used this particular roasting pan since we moved to this house because it's just a bit too big for the oven. So the oven door was just slightly ajar. So the smoke alarm kept going off, even with the kitchen window open, the front door open, and the over-the-stove fan on high. So Brianne disconnected it from the wall. Mutter. (Yes, she has since re-connected it.)

Anyway, here's the before & after pic of the chicken!

It was delicious! The skin was the perfect amount of crispy. The flesh was nicely flavored. I would definitely do this again!

As a side dish, I put my sprouted soybeans and mixed beans into a glass casserole dish and drizzled them with olive oil. I ground some pink Himalayan salt and black pepper over it and stirred it all up, adding more salt & pepper until I thought it was enough. Then I sprinkled dried marjoram over it and stirred it again.

Here's the before and after pic of the beans:

 

Not much difference in appearance, I know. The beans were good, but a bit chewy, except for those that were a bit crispy. I'm not sure if the answer is to cook them for less time next time so they're just hot, or to cook them for longer so they're all a bit crispy. Hmmm..

Anyway, I asked Brianne to take as much meat as possible off the bones so I could use the carcass to make broth, but she suggested leaving it as is and making actual chicken soup instead. So that's what we did. The carcass is in the big crock pot on low heat right now. I also poured all the pan drippings in and tomorrow we'll remove all the bones, add some seasonings if necessary, and should have tasty tasty chicken soup. Can't wait!

.