Monday Munchies: Roasted Chicken

Here's the sad thing.  Until six months ago, I had no idea how easy and delicious roasted chicken was.  I had never, ever cooked a whole chicken.  I bought skinless, boneless frozen chicken breasts because I hated handling raw meat.  Then we bought the farm and raised a hundred chickens.  We butchered 96 of those hundred and handling raw meat was no longer an issue.  What to do with lots of frozen, whole chickens became the issue. 

To use chicken in the recipes I'd favored in life before the farm I needed several pounds of chicken breasts.  Our chickens didn't provide breast meat like that so my cooking needed adjustment.  A friend recommended we try beer butt chicken.  I tried it and we loved it.  I brush my constipated chickens with butter, sprinkle them with seasoning and cook them in the oven two or three at a time.  I use the oven rather than the grill mainly because we started cooking chicken this way in December and I'm not wild about manning the grill for an hour in cold weather. 

One day I needed to cook two chickens for dinner and had no beer in cans.  Rather than run out to the store I decided there had to be something else I could make.  There was and it tunred out to be easier than popping the top on a can of beer, roasted chicken. 

Here's the the happy thing.  Not only is roasting a chicken super easy but it looks very impressive. Plus, I got to learn a new skill, how to truss a chicken. I  love learning new things! I also love it when the food I make looks and tastes great.

For those of you that have been roasting chicken for years, three cheers to you.  For those of you that never purchased a whole chicken before, be brave.  You just might love it.