Dualing Chicken dinners–Roasted vs crock pot

I received two new cookbooks for Christmas. Ina Garten’s new cookbook, How Easy is that?, which is not surprise to many of you. The other is Make It Fast, Cook it Slow, by Stephanie O’Dea of crockpot365.blogspot.com. I have made a few of her recipes before like the Pumpkin Soup.

 
I am a little bit of a cookbook nerd in that every so often I sit down with both cookbooks and a pack of post it notes. I read through the book and place post it notes on the recipes I want to try right off bat. I then narrow them down to a few for the week and write down the shopping list ingredients, as well the page number of the recipe, If I skip this step, it can become problem if you forget why you bought the 3 cans of pinto beans.
 
This week I put the children up for a challenge of chicken. The first one of the week was done in the crock pot, Brown Sugar Chicken. The author’s notes suggested her kids called it “candy chicken”. Well every kid should like it then. Covered with brown sugar and 7-UP.
 
Well the adults ate it but the kids said they did not care for it. The crock pot is definitely a great tool to have dinner ready when coming home late from a child’s activity. Oh well, only 365 more recipes to look at in that book.
 
I used the leftovers to top a spinach salad later in the week.
 
I had bought a whole chicken to do in the crock pot as well but after seeing my children’s reaction and my husband asking me are we eating all week from this thing, ( I made lentil soup in there another night); I decided to try Jeffery’s Favorite Roast Chicken.
 
I had most of the ingredients on hand, instead of lemons, I used oranges. I also skipped making the sauce because this was one of the juiciest birds I have made. I took it out as suggested in the recipe, the little popper was not out yet but it was throughly cooked and beaming with juices. However, my onions did burn another reason I skipped the sauce.
 
This is the way I will make a whole chicken in the future no doubts. If you have an hour and 1/2 before you need to serve dinner definitely opt for the oven. It had wonderfuly crisp skin which I indulged a little bit but most importantly the chicken was moist. The kids kept asking for more.
 
Ina Garten’s Jeffery’s Roast Chicken Recipe
  • 1 (4 to 5 pound) roasting chicken
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 lemons, halved
  • 1 head garlic, cut in half crosswise
  • Good olive oil
  • 2 Spanish onions, peeled thickly sliced 
  • 1/2 cup dry white wine
  • 1/2 cup chicken stock
  • 1 tbs. all-pupose flour
 
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
 

Remove the chicken giblets. Rinse the chicken inside and out. Remove any excess fat and leftover pin feathers and pat the outside dry. Liberally salt and pepper the inside of the chicken. Stuff the cavity with the half of lemons, and all the garlic. Brush the outside of the chicken with the oil and sprinkle again with salt and pepper. Tie the legs together with kitchen string and tuck the wing tips under the body of the chicken. Place the onions, in a roasting pan. Toss with salt, pepper,e, and olive oil. Spread around the bottom of the roasting pan and place the chicken on top.

Roast the chicken for 1 hour and 15 mins, or until the juices run clear when you cut between a leg and thigh. Remove the chicken and vegetables to a platter and Cover with aluminum foil for about 10minutes. Slice the chicken onto a platter and serve it with the vegetables.
 

 

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