Lemon & Rosemary Roast Chicken

   You know how certain seasons make you want to eat certain things? Well, as Spring creeps in, I want more salads. I eat these ridiculously large salads of romaine, spinach, peppers of all colours, cucumber, tomato, hot banana pepper rings, sometimes a chopped-up hard boiled egg, but I always enjoy having some leftover roasted chicken for my salad. This roast chicken is so good the day you make it, but it really makes fantastic, lemony chicken leftovers.  :)  

Ingredients

• 3-5lb whole chicken, rinsed & patted dry (it helps the skin get crispy) 
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 cup butter or coconut oil, softened
• 2 large springs fresh rosemary, diced finely, or 1 Tsp dried rosemary (I used dried) 
• 2 Lemons (halved, juiced, and rinds reserved)
  
• 2 small/medium onions (or one big one), quartered
• Salt & pepper to taste

** If you want to round this meal out, cut up 4-5 medium sized potatoes, and 3-4 carrots (or a bag of mini carrots), and add them to the roasting pan after the bird.


Method:

1. Preheat oven to 450.
2. Add coconut oil to a medium sized bowl and add the olive oil, & rosemary. Mix to combine. 
3. Gently (using a spoon or you hand) lift the skin off the back of the breast, exposing the meat. Poke with a fork, and season with salt and pepper. Pour half of the lemon juice onto the meat. Then, using your hands, rub 1/4 of the rosemary mixture under the skin. Pull skin back over the breasts. 
4. Pour the rest of the lemon juice over chicken
5. Generously season chicken with salt and pepper.
   
6. Using your hand, rub the remaining rosemary mixture onto the chicken, generously covering up all of the chicken.
7. Stuff the chicken with the squeezed out lemon halves, and onions (as much as you can). Any extra onions can just go into the roasting pan. 
8. Tie together the legs if desired.
9. Place chicken into the roasting pan (preferably one with a wire rack, though it's not the end of the world if you don't have one).
10. If adding potatoes and carrots, do it now, and drizzle some olive oil and salt and pepper over them. 
11. Cook for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350. Bake for an additional 60-75 minutes, or until the juices from a thigh run clear (cooking times vary due to the size of the chicken. As a general rule, you cook a chicken for 20 minutes per pound). If the chicken is browning too much before being fully cooked, tent with foil.
12. Take chicken out of the oven (and if you have the potatoes and carrots with it, transfer chicken to a large plate or platter, and return veggies back to the oven), lightly tent the chicken with foil and let it rest for 15-20 minutes before carving (Letting the chicken rest gives the juices time to redistribute so that all of the meat is moist. This should also give the potatoes enough time to finish cooking).
13. Carve chicken, and take the veggies out of the oven and serve up. 

   Using fresh ingredients really does make a roast chicken taste better. I had lemons, but my regular grocery store didn't have any fresh rosemary. Bummer.

   Lifting the skin, piercing it, and applying the butter or coconut oil and herb mixture right under the skin means the breast will have lots of flavour and moisture. And stuffing the cavity of the chicken with the lemon rinds and onion mean that every inch of that meat will have a wonderful flavour. 

   A roast chicken is really very easy to make, and can be so versatile. There are so many flavour combos you can do, but the basic principles are the same: A-lift the skin and prick the breasts, B-Put your 'something fatty' under the skin, and C-Put something with juice into the cavity!
   I hope everyone is enjoying the spring that is slowly arriving (with all it's rain!). I've enjoyed waking up to a flooded basement 2 mornings in a row, even though we bought a new sump pump yesterday. Poopers. Aw well, such in life in a Canadian spring. You can't have such a long, icy, snowy winter without a flooded basement in the spring!