Roasted....like a chicken with it's head cut off

It is SUNDAY!  

I love Sunday suppers.  Usually involved family, more food than we should be eating, laughter, and time reminiscing around the table.  My husband and I are very big believers in family meals around the table.  Sunday was always family day when my son was little, and we enjoyed big Sunday suppers at home, or at PopPop and MomMom's house, Italian food until we couldn't move and great times.  Do you eat regularly with your family around the table?  Discuss your day, discuss any problems, share experiences?  I sometimes feel we are so busy with work, school, activities, and outside commitments; we forget the importance of the dinner table discussions.  I urge you to eat around the table with your children when you can.  My son can't remember the brand of clothes he had, or the sneakers he had, he remembers fishing with dad, football with dad, cooking with mom and dinner around the table.  I am dead serious, and I love that he remembers how important it was and will pass it on to his own daughter and future children.\

Anyway, we have gotten a little away from it, with our son grown and gone, and living too far away to have our old Sunday dates.  The last couple of weeks I have decided to pick it back up and this week, we had roasted chicken, baked macaroni and cheese, and pavlova for dessert.  We had more, these are just the things I will be blogging.  I will do it in 3 different posts.  I love chicken, I will be honest, I could live on chicken.  Or pretty darn close to living on it.  I inject my chicken using an injector.  If you do not have one, you can let this mixture cool and make sure your chicken is dry so you can rub it all over, on top of the skin and underneath the skin.   So let me share with you how I prepare a gorgeous, tender, juicy roasted chicken! 

You will need:
1 roasting chicken *average size*
1 stick of butter, melted
1 tsp thyme  *ground*
1 tsp onion salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp ground sage
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup water

I am SO afraid of needles, just looking at this picture is making me feel sick! 

Make sure you rinse your chicken.  I don't really feel you must rinse a chicken for any reason other than it feels slimy and gross to me and I have to get the slime off!  Pat it dry with paper towels and proceed.  Mix these ingredients and inject into all parts of chicken, stick injector all the way in a breast and release butter as your pulling the needle out, so it gets everywhere.  Stick and jab it anywhere and everywhere!!

Leave a little bit of butter so you can rub it on the outside of the skin, so it crisps and browns nicely.  I then grind some fresh sea salt on the outside of the chicken, all over.

You can tuck the wing tips back, tie the legs, whatever you want to do.  You can cut the spine out, which I did, and I put in a freezer bag to use for stock.  You can extract much more flavor from uncooked bones than already cooked bones.

Roast at 375 covered for 1 hour.  Remove foil and continue to roast until your meat thermometer reads 165 in the middle close to the bone of the breast and the skin is nice and brown. I take it out, cover it with foil and let it rest 15 minutes.  I slice the breast, and lightly sprinkle a tiny bit more salt over the sliced meat.

Remember as with all meat, the cooking times depend on the size of your chicken.  Please, please, PLEASE check the temp of your chicken.  Raw chicken can do terrible things to people, *unfortunately speaking from experience* and you don't want anyone sick.  Adjust cooking times according to the size of your chicken.

Now my little chickens, (I use this as a term of endearment for one of my best friends children) try your hand at it.  It is easy, leftovers can be used for endless weeknight meals.  Chicken salad, chicken noodle soup, etc.  It will be so nicely flavored from the injecting and seasonings you won't know how you ever lived without injecting and slow roasting!

Your "finger lickin' good chicken" chefwannabe
Chris

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