Here's another simple meal but packed with flavor and yumminess. I know that's probably not a real word but it's fun to say so yumminess it is. :) I love roasting meat and veggies. If you can turn an oven on and season some meat and veggies, you can roast too! For the chicken you can simply remove the insides, rub olive oil and salt and pepper on it and it will be delicious but for this chicken I put about five more minutes extra work into it for something a bit more special. I made an herb butter and put it under and on top of the skin. Herb butter...sounds fancy but it couldn't be more simple. Take about a half stick of butter and let it soften either in the microwave for a few seconds or on the countertop for a while. Add lots of dried herbs to the butter (whatever you have on hand-basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, herbs de provence, garlic, etc) and incorporate them into the butter with a fork. That's right, just smash it together and you have herb butter. See, told you it was easy. I also add salt and pepper. Then all you do is take some hunks and put them under the skin of a whole chicken and rub on top of the skin as well. Salt and pepper the outside and place in a roasting pan and into a preheated 350 degree oven. Usually it takes about 1 1/2 hours to cook through and juices run clear. Let it rest for several minutes after taking it out of the oven before slicing into it. And there you have it, you roasted a chicken. Simple and easy. You can get really fancy and use the drippings for a pan gravy but I didn't tonight and it was still delicious and moist. If you have any leftovers, you can use it in a million different ways: chicken salad, on top of salads, stir fry, sandwiches if you eat bread, etc. And if you really want to get the most out of your chicken, boil the leftover bones to make chicken soup. You can get several meals from a $5 chicken. That's why I love to make them!
For this meal I also chose to roast some veggies in the oven as well for a quick side dish. We had VBS this week and I didn't have a lot of time to spend over the stove. This way I could just spend a couple of minutes cutting up the vegetables and then let the oven do the rest of the work while I got my kids ready to go. On half of the pan I put asparagus and on the other half I put cut up zucchini, squash and onions from our garden. I seasoned these very simply with salt and pepper but you can use any seasonings you want. Drizzle some olive oil on top and roast in the oven when your chicken is close to being done. It took my veggies about 15 minutes but just eyeball it until your veggies are tender and a bit brown on the tips. The onions will get carmelized and sweet. It really made for a healthy, delicious and fast meal as far as time spent "cooking". So go for it and try roasting. I think you'll love it!
