Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

I used to work for a guy in the Navy who used to love saying, "winner, winner, chicken dinner" after making my fellow junior officers and me endure a painful interrogation about the specifications and war fighting abilities of our warship. 

He was a jerk who also used to wander our ship with his shoes untied (majorly unprofessional at the very least), and he made life unnecessarily difficult. 

Making a whole, roasted chicken (or even a turkey) is not that difficult!!!!!!

I know, way to bury the lede, Angelique! But I'm serious- you can do it. It does take some time, but you can totally save money by making your own roasted chicken (or two) instead of just buying a pre-cooked "rotochick," as Chrissy Teigen calls them in her cookbook, Cravings. 

In fact, I used Miz Teigen's recipe, which she calls "BTI (Better than Ina's) Roast Chicken and Vegetables," referring to Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa. I also referred to Ina's recipe, to see what was different and if I should include any of the details from her recipe.

Here's my chicken! Not my best photo, but it tasted great.

I didn't use parsnips or fennel. I had fennel but totally forgot about it, haha. I've made a whole chicken before, and I've also prepared a Thanksgiving turkey with my husband's help a couple of times, so I knew the basics- you do whatever seasoning you have planned, plop the bird on some veggies, and stick it in the oven for a couple of hours. 

Here's what I find different about Chrissy's recipe: she has you make a herbed butter (rosemary, thyme, oregano, and lemon zest) and rub it under the skin of the bird before roasting. I love how she adds that "it feels kinda dirty, but you’ll like it."

My chicken during prep- can you see the herbed butter?! Yum.

In addition to stuffing the cavity with the lemon halves and herbs and garlic, you scatter veggies and garlic under and around the bird. When I later applied this recipe to a turkey my mom [randomly] gave to us, I also added some chicken stock to the pan veggies since the turkey was on a roasting grate inside the pan and I didn't want to dry them out too much. Dry turkey is bad, but dry turkey accompanied by little raisins of vegetables is uncool.

This is my finished turkey! 

If you do decide to apply to a turkey as I did, again, definitely have some chicken stock on hand if you put the turkey on a rack. Also, you'll probably need more herbed butter and vegetables, but it's totally doable, and you'll have a ton of meat to make turkey sandwiches later. Total Thanksgiving in February situation! It's not a thing, but if we all do it, we can make it a thing, right? Like fetch? 

Anddddddd.... don't forget to gather all your leftover bones and such for stock! I found a great crockpot stock recipe from Joyously Domestic via Pinterest because I can't be tied to checking on a pot every 15-30 minutes. It turned out totally fine, I have one of those giant crockpots and I shoved as many poultry leftover pieces as I could in there with carrots, celery, peppercorns, herbs, garlic, and leeks. I held off on the salt so I can salt per whatever recipe I use my stock in instead. I definitely recommend watching Alton Brown's chicken stock recipe, too, because he's always good for a breakdown of what your #foodgoals should be while you're cooking, which allows you to modify recipes based on what you want and what you have available.

I'll leave ya with a pic of my roasted chicken dinner plate:

Happy roasting,

Big A.