{"id":6550,"date":"2018-11-08T15:08:30","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T15:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/?p=6550"},"modified":"2018-11-08T17:58:22","modified_gmt":"2018-11-08T17:58:22","slug":"the-single-mom-chronicles-oct-13th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/2018\/11\/08\/the-single-mom-chronicles-oct-13th\/","title":{"rendered":"The Single Mom Chronicles Oct. 13th"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my lifesaving tricks for meals was a whole chicken.\u00a0 With one whole chicken, I could make a slew of different things.\u00a0 I could roast it, serve it for dinner, and make a couple of things with the leftovers.\u00a0 Or I could roast it and use the entire thing for the week.\u00a0 When a whole chicken costs five or six bucks and lasts you and your kid nearly a whole week, you’ll be just as thrilled as I was to get whole chickens.<\/p>\n

Don’t let that bird intimidate you either.\u00a0 I know all the celeb chefs talk about trussing and fussing and this and that.\u00a0 Don’t bother with unnecessary work.\u00a0 No one is going to turn their nose up at your roast chicken because you didn’t tie the legs together.\u00a0 Keep the seasoning simple unless you’re planning to entertain on that five dollar chicken and then, by all means, break out those fresh herbs.\u00a0 I usually did a garlic salt and some pepper after rubbing the chicken with some olive oil.\u00a0 I’d shove half a lemon and any sweet onion that would fit into the bird and call it good.\u00a0 I like to roast things on top of thick slices of onion.\u00a0 A whole chicken is no different.\u00a0 I toss in a rib of celery, a carrot, and some cheap white wine around the onion slices if I have white cooking wine laying around and I plan on making chicken gravy.\u00a0 Otherwise, just use a little water or chicken broth.\u00a0 Or both.\u00a0 Whatever.<\/p>\n

And my secret?\u00a0 I always cook that bird breast side down.\u00a0 I flip it over just to brown the skin on the breast after touching up the seasoning.\u00a0 I use two dinner forks and flip that thing end over end.\u00a0 Reseason the bird on the breast and brown it.\u00a0 It’s perfectly juicy and folks that prefer white meat will flip out and think you’re a chicken genius.<\/p>\n

Update Nov. 7th:\u00a0 I threw the neck and the giblets in because tonight I’m making chicken gravy and mashed potatoes.\u00a0 I’ll mince them up into the gravy.\u00a0 I had to dig this draft I wrote out of draft oblivion because I’ve been so swamped with life that I never got around to making this roast chicken dinner.\u00a0 Single moms around the world will totally understand that I’m weeks late and it’s fine because I’m doing it in between mountains of laundry.\u00a0 I’m not kidding….mountains.\u00a0 Literally.\u00a0 This is my life.\u00a0 Thank the lawd for chardonnay.<\/p>\n

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Our friends Pam and Sandy are coming for dinner tonight.\u00a0 They live in the neighborhood and I just love them.\u00a0 Sandy is so salty and cynical and he speaks his mind so we’re cut from the same cloth.\u00a0 And his wife Pam is just darling; one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.\u00a0 Sandy and Hubs are actually friends from the music scene around here long before I ever came along.\u00a0 Pam and I just like to drink wine and eat delicious things and grow delicious things.\u00a0 They are my people.<\/p>\n

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Back to the chicken at hand.\u00a0 I didn’t feel like cutting a whole other onion for the cavity so I stuck a meyer lemon in the chicken and called it good.\u00a0 I roasted that thing on 350 for a couple of hours and finished it on 400 to brown the breast after flipping it over.\u00a0 I did an easy seasoning of pepper and my herbed pink salt blend and that was it.\u00a0 Juicy chicken and silky gravy will make any single, stressed out, cash strapped mom feel like everything is right with the world.\u00a0 At least until dinner is over.<\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n\t<\/g><\/svg><\/span> Print<\/a>\n\t\n\t\n<\/div>\n

Roast Chicken<\/h2>\n
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Ingredients<\/h3>
  • 1<\/span> whole chicken<\/span><\/li>
  • 1<\/span> carrot washed and ends trimmed<\/span><\/li>
  • 1<\/span> stalk celery washed and ends trimmed<\/span><\/li>
  • 1<\/span> large whole onion cut into 3 thick slices<\/span><\/li>
  • 1<\/span> lemon cut in half<\/span><\/li>
  • 1\/2<\/span> cup<\/span> white wine<\/span><\/li>
  • 1\/2<\/span> cup<\/span> chicken broth<\/span><\/li>
  • Olive oil<\/span><\/li>
  • Salt and pepper<\/span><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n

    Instructions<\/h3>
    • Preheat the oven to 350 and remove any bits from inside the chicken if there are any.  Arrange the vegetables on the bottom of the roasting pan or cast iron pot (I use my large Lodge enamled cast iron pot).  I use the slices of onion to rest the chicken on and put everyting else around the outer edges.  
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      <\/div>Massage the chicken with just enough olive oil to make your seasoning stick to the bird and then season it.  I start breast side up because I cook the chicken breast side down first.  Put the lemon halves inside the cavity and pour the wine and chicken broth over the vegetables.  <\/span>
      <\/span>
      <\/div>Place the seasoned chicken on top and cook for about two hours, flipping the chicken to breast side up two thirds of the way through.  Lightly reseason the breast side of the bird before returning it to the oven.  <\/span><\/span>
      <\/div>Raise the heat to 400 for the last 15 minutes or so to brown the breast, but only if you need to.  Using convection (if you have that option on your oven range) to roast this chicken will take half the time.  Serve with potatoes, rice, or noodles!<\/span>
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      \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      One of my lifesaving tricks for meals was a whole chicken.\u00a0 With one whole chicken, I could make a slew of different things.\u00a0 I could roast it, serve it for dinner, and make a couple of things with the leftovers.\u00a0 Or I could roast it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":[],"wprm-recipe-roundup-description":[],"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/IMG_20181107_181033906.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pagICo-1HE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6550"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6550"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6814,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6550\/revisions\/6814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.burnedatthesteak.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}