savory sunday // roasted chicken

Yum. That's what that is.Today I'm gonna show you how I make my roasted chicken. It's super duper easy and delicious. In fact, I didn't try to roast a chicken until I was in my 30s because I felt like it would be as much work as Thanksgiving. Oh, but I was so wrong. This is so simple! If you don't have your own variation, chop chop!So for my recipe, I use:• One bird. I'm gonna be honest and tell you I usually buy it already in pieces because it's easier to get off the bone that way. But for the photo, I thought a full bird would be prettier. Yeah, I make decisions based on aesthetics. You should know that by now.• A stick of butter• A red onion• A few cloves of garlic• A few celery stalks• 5-6 carrots• 3/4 tsp thyme• 3/4 tsp salt• freshly ground black pepper• potatoes or another starch (cauliflower works great for those Paleo folks out there!)First, preheat your oven to 400 degrees. While it's warming up, melt the full stick of butter and add the thyme, salt and pepper. Stir that up (yum). Next, I roughly quarter (or sixth?) the onion, peel and chop the carrots, chop the potatoes (into sixths as well), chop up the celery and peel a few garlic cloves. Mix all of the veggies in a bowl and then pour the butter mixture over SAVING A LITTLE BIT for later. Don't forget to save some!Then you arrange the veggies around the roasting pan, and place the bird in the middle. You can do this all in a flat pan, but I prefer a roasting rack so that the juices drip down below (and it's easier to clean in the end).Next, pour the rest of the butter mixture that you saved onto the top of the bird and brush it into the skin. You can use a regular cooking brush or the back of a spoon. You just want some of that buttery thyme goodness on the bird. It makes for a nice, crispy skin. Then? You put it in the oven for an hour. And in that hour, you can bask in the amazing smells coming from your kitchen.After an hour, the bird should look like the top photo in this post. Then you remove it and cut off the meat. I keep the meat on the legs, but remove it from the rest of the bird.Then you serve it all up with the veggies! Yum! So very easy and so dang delicious. And it clocks in at about 412 calories per serving (four servings per recipe). Now, that's before the extra credit.Wait, EXTRA CREDIT? Yes. This will take your meal to the next level, I promise.So, let's make a simple gravy. Use the roasting pan (DO NOT CLEAN IT) and put it on the stovetop on low heat. Add in about 1/3 cup chicken stock and 1/4 cup red wine. Throw in a dash more thyme and stir this over the heat until the wine begins to cook off just a bit (lots of steam). Make sure you scrape all the stuff from the bottom of the pan into the sauce. Mmmmmm.... Put this in a gravy boat and pour it over the plate. And you just try not to drink that gravy straight. It's harder than it sounds.