Awesomeness in chicken forms

Yesterday I made a chicken for supper but I tried something new.  Normally, I put it in my roasting pan, with the lid, and cook it at 350 for about an hour and a half.  It usually splits the breast but the meat is so tender, I don't care.  It isn't for the Queen or anything so a split breast is a decent sacrifice for such juicy meat.

Well, my husband made a comment that he misses having crispy skin on his chicken.  I don't normally eat the skin so it never dawned on me that there was a difference.  To make Pokey happy, because it's my duty to keep him pleased as punch, I decided to cook my chicken last night in a different fashion.

I first took two lengths of aluminum foil and rolled them length-wise so that I had something to rest the bird since my normal roasting rack did not fit in my dish.  This lifted it up just enough that it wasn't sitting directly in the juices while cooking.  After that was all set, I washed the bird and set it in the dish on the foil bits.  I took my orange blossom honey and drizzled it over the entire bird.  I then sprinkled on some lemon peel, celery salt, pepper, and parsley.  It looked fabulous -

That is one beautiful bird right there!

Even before it went into the oven, I thought it was beautiful.  I honestly sat there and stared at it for a goodly bit thinking that Gordon would be so proud of it if he could see... Paula would tell me to add butter but in my cooking daydreams, Paula is always telling me to add butter to everything.

So I preheated the oven to 275F and placed this gorgeous bird on the middle rack - mine are actually marked A-D so she was on B for her holiday in the oven.  I set the timer for two and a half hours and went about my day.  When the timer went off, I temped her to make sure we were on target for supper time.  She was a big girl at just over six and a quarter pounds so timing was important.  I then covered her lightly with aluminum foil so she didn't burn and placed her back for another hour.  The final results were amazing!  Have a look -

I had to run and grab the camera to get a picture because Pokey couldn't wait to dig in!

It tasted absolutely delicious.  I will admit that the breast meat was not as juicy as it is when I cook it in my covered roasting pan but it was still good.  It didn't dry out at all, like I feared it would.  All I know is that Pokey and Hobbit were very happy and I have two more bags of leftover chicken to use in the freezer from this baby which will yield me a total of four more dinners. 

Like I always say, you just can't beat a good roaster when it comes to getting the most bang for your buck.  This awesome bird was just over $13 so we'll call it $14 for the sake of argument.  That means I got five meals for $2.80 a meal.  You just can't top it.  Just because you are feeding a family on a budget doesn't mean that you have to eat cheap boxed meals.  Good food, when you purchase wisely, can actually save you money and feed you well.

Oh, what was I doing while the chicken was cooking yesterday - finishing up my Mission... which I am promptly going to frog now that I have turned it in.  I love this neon yarn so I am going to turn right around and make something else with it, I just didn't care for the excessive fluffiness of this particular item.  The chicken bag though - well, that's just awesome no matter how you look at it.

See how it drapes like curtains, not a fan.  I'm going to frog it though and make something fabulous.

Off to spend my morning rewinding yarn and searching patterns.  I hope y'all have a wonderful day.  This is Hobbit's last day of school before Spring Break so I'm going to enjoy my last day of quiet for the next 8 days.  On the super up side, Pokey and I were both able to get vacation during her Spring Break so it will be a week full of family fun!