Cooking is easy.

No, really, it is! Let me show you how easy it was for me to make a delicious roast chicken, on a monday. Really, it is. Sometimes I even do it in the toaster oven, and since my toaster oven has convection that makes it get done even faster!

First, I hoofed it up to trader joes after school today and bought a chicken. Then, I came home and preheated my oven to 375 degrees. I put the chicken and some cut up potatoes, onions, and smooshed garlic in a pan and drizzled everything with some olive oil, salt and pepper, and TJ's 21 spice salute.


I threw that in the oven for about 1.5-2 hours, depending on the size of the chicken. It helps if you have one of these to help you know when it's done.



I usually take it out at 165, but I overshot this one some and took it out at 168.

Some of you are like "ewww, 165 isn't cooked enough" but this thing seriously carried over at least 8 degrees in like ten minutes. If you DON'T have a thermometer, you can tell it's done when you pull gently on the leg and it does this.


DO NOT depend on one of those silly pop up timer, things.

I also threw together some brussel sprouts, drizzled them with salt, pepper, olive oil, and balsamic vingegar and threw them in while the chicken finished/rested.


I took the chicken off on a plate when it was done and put the potatoes back in, too. I like mine really browned.



See how easy that was? Things to keep in mind is if you mix some herbs/spices with butter and put them under the skin on your chicken, the flavor gets in there even more. Lemon zest works well, too. Leftovers are awesome, and, of course, it's born for homemade chicken stock. I take the giblets out of my chicken and just roast them in the pan with it, and then throw them, the chicken carcass, leftover onion, carrot, and celery ends (keep a bag in the freezer for just that purpose) in the slow cooker or pressure cooker, depending on what kind of mood I'm in.

I also prefer the potatoes cooked in their own pan, they get a lot crispier and carmelized and, well, less covered in fat. This was easier and made less mess, though!

p.s. I had the most infuriating time ever trying to upload these pictures! For some reason firefox doesn't recognize them in my "last import" folder, and I guess flickr merged with yahoo and now I can't log in anymore?? Finally made it work with picasa after much angst.