Start the New Year Off Right! Budget Buster Bulk Cooking! Roasted Chicken!

To start this year off right, I wanted to introduce a new series where we focus on cooking a protein in bulk and then enjoying it for our meal that night, then seeing how many more meals can be made, with the remaining main protein.  This time I am focusing on how to properly roast a spatchcocked chicken, actually two.  We ate this chicken as our main course for dinner the evening we made it then we are planning at least four to five additional meals out of these birds. 

I picked up to rather large roasting chickens at the market.  These were just over $1.00 a pound.  In the video I mentioned that they were 4 to 5 pounds each, however they were actually 6 to 7 pounds each.  These are whoppers.  I chose to spatchcock these birds to shorten the roasting time.  This will ensure a moist and fully cooked bird in just about an hour.

Spatchcocking is a fancy word for cutting out the backbone and laying the bird flat.  You can barbecue chickens this way or you can roast them or even do chicken under a brick this way, however for that I think you need a much smaller chicken for that to work out just right.  These chickens may need a cinder block!  LOL!  

I feel strongly that knowing how to roast a chicken is so easy to do that you really need to know how to do it!  Thus making this a kitchen basic for the channel, however we are also embarking on what I am going to call the "Budget Buster Bulk Cooking" series.  So these chickens are a great start for that.

I plan on getting no less than four meals and hopefully five from these two chickens.  One meal of roasted chicken. then a chicken and stuffing casserole, a sour cream enchilada casserole, a "Big Salad" a la Elaine from Seinfeld with cubed chicken and then the finale, of a roast chicken soup, using all the carcasses, skin, bones and leftover meat to make a delicious, rich broth with chicken, veggies and noodles. 

The intention here is to make four or five meals serving four people.  Not meals that will be planned leftovers because these are the planned leftovers.  I want you to see how far you can stretch two chickens to feed your family.

I also want you to know that if you don't want to roast your own chicken, then just swing by the store and pick up a couple of rotisserie chickens.  Then follow along.  No judgement here.  Maybe some of you are just singles, or couples.  Maybe you are super busy and a cooked chicken is a God send for you.  I say go for it!  Nothing wrong with letting the store do the work for you and when you can buy a cooked chicken for the same price as a raw one or even less!  You do what is best for you!

I plan on doing similar videos for beef brisket or pot roast, pork loin, pork shoulder and hamburger.  I also plan on incorporating some Zaycon Fresh meats in the mix because when I start picking up my monthly deliveries this year I want you to see exactly what I will be doing and hopefully it will help you to not be overwhelmed with all that meat at one time!  I know that can be a daunting thought, but baby steps!  We can do it together and make things easy!

If you are interested in Zaycon Fresh you can sign up for sales and discounts using this link:  http://bit.ly/2glqv2q  For a limited time Zaycon Fresh is offering 20% off your first order for new customers!  Use Promo Code BL20 when signing up and placing your first order!  Offer ends 11:59 pm PST on 3/31/2017. Offer available to new orders only. Cannot be combined with any other offer or promotion. One promo code per order. Limited to one-time usage per household. Offer is non-transferable. Void where prohibited. Offer will be revoked if terms and conditions are not met due to partial cancellation of order.

I hope you will follow along and join me on this journey!  I hope you give this roast chicken a try and I hope you love it!

Happy Eating! 

You can find a printable version of this recipe on my website here:  http://bit.ly/2ix2ff6

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Easy, French Style Herb Roasted Chicken!

When I think of a classic Sunday dinner, it has to be a perfectly roasted chicken.  Tender, moist meat, seasoned beyond compare with a crispy, golden brown skin.  That is what I am going to share with you today, a roast chicken with a European flair.  French style, herb roasted chicken is just a delicious as it sounds but not nearly as difficult as you may think.

Cooking in the French style can sometimes sound a bit intimidating, but I can assure you that most basic French cuisine has simple roots of the peasant variety.  Yes, there was Marie Antoinette, and her cake, but in reality, the poor folks outnumbered the aristocracy and it is their food that we should take our cue from.  Simple, wholesome ingredients like a perfectly sourced chicken along with fresh aromatics like onions and Meyer lemons are the basic building blocks for a delicious bird.  Top that off with some good quality olive oil and a generous sprinkling of homemade Herbes De Provence and you have a bird that would have been fit to feed Marie herself with nary a complaint to be heard. 

Getting this underway is easy!  Go get yourself the best chicken you can afford.  I love to get mine from a local shop that sources locally grown birds, however sometimes my wallet screams at me and I just go for the grocery store variety when I can get them on sale.  Sometimes I can get whole birds for .69 a pound and that is when I fill a portion of my freezer with them because you can't beat a whole chicken for around $3! 

Today I have two chickens that are both between 5 and 6 pounds each.  I love to roast off more than one bird at a time and if I had had the room in my oven, I would have roasted three of them as I intended, but for now one of them went into the freezer for another time.  It takes just as much time and energy to roast off two or three chickens as it does to roast one.  Make use of your time, energy, and electricity and get more for all your effort.  You can do so much with leftover roasted meats that the payoff really is enormous.

I washed and dried each chicken and then place them on a wire rack inside of a rimmed baking sheet.  This will help the air circulate all around the entire bird and allow any juices and fat to drain into the pan without having the bird boil in it's own juices.  This is what roasting is all about!  Then I sprinkled the cavities of the chicken with some of my homemade Herbes De Provence and stuffed them with some halved, peeled onions and lemons, which I squeezed over the top of the birds before stuffing them inside.  This will help to perfume the meat and give it amazing flavor. 

Next I drizzled about a tablespoon of olive oil over each chicken and gave it a quick massage to spread out the oil.  Then I sprinkled a copious amount of the herb mixture over each one, completely covering them with a luxurious crust of herbaceous goodness.  If you like, at this point, you can give the chickens a little spray of olive or vegetable oil.  This will help the dried herbs not to burn so fast and give them a little more oomph!  I use my Misto, oil sprayer for this, but any commercial cooking oil spray will work just fine.

Then I roasted the chickens for 45 minutes at 400 degrees and then for an additional 45 minutes at 350 degrees, making sure to keep them in the oven until their internal temperature, when taken with an instant read meat thermometer registered at least 160 degrees.  Make sure you take the temperature in the breast as well as the thigh area.  Also make sure that the juices are running clear with no signs of red or pink.  Then you can be sure your bird is perfectly done. 

You're not quite ready to cut into that bird just yet though!  Go ahead and cover them with some foil and let them rest for at least 20 minutes to allow all those delicious juices to settle and redistribute into the meat before you are ready to sit down to a delicious meal of herb roasted chicken.

I served mine with some roasted potatoes and onions along with a big green salad and we were very happy campers!  The best part is that there are plenty of leftovers to have fun with in the coming week.  I plan on making several dishes to feed my family just from these two chickens.    They include a chicken burrito lasagna, Chinese chicken soup, chicken pot pie, shredded chicken salad and maybe even a Greek inspired chicken pizza.  There might even be some meat left over for egg rolls, you just never know.  Chicken is not going to waste in this house and it shouldn't in yours either.

I do hope that you will give this classic French style, herb roasted chicken a try and I hope you love it!  I hope that you are inspired to step outside your comfort zone and make delicious, simple and nutritious meals for your family and do it all within your budget.  Look for more easy recipes, coming soon where I will be using up some of those leftovers from our Sunday chicken dinner, I know you are going to love them too!

Happy Eating!

If you would like to see how I roasted my chicken, you can have a look, here: