Roast Chicken, Twice Baked Potatoes, Carrots and Apple Pie

When we lived in Germany I loved how often we went to the grocery store. I think the Europens have it right when it comes to food shopping, keep your kitchen stocked with some basics and then hit the store almost daily for your dinner ingredients. Usually when I head to the grocery store I already know what I need to get. I have a list and I try to map out my trip to not waste extra movements or time in the store, I am an engineer after all. There is something almost magical about those times when you are in a grocery store without a clock or a list hanging over you, the idea that your dinner can be anything you can imagine. I encourage you to hit the grocery store every once in a while without a menu in mind, there is a whole store full of ingredients waiting to inspire you and occasionally your best creations will come from stumbling across a sale on something you might not ordinarily think to purchase.

My roomates and I often email back and forth about what we would like to make for dinner during the day. Its a nice distraction from work, and it makes us feel like real people instead of office drones. This past week one roomate had a craving for rotisserie chicken, and we had some leftover store brand potato salad, so that was the plan for dinner. I had to go to the store to get a prescription filled, so picking up the required ingredients for dinner that night fell to me. The rotisserie chickens just looked sad that day, already dried out and kinda small, it did not look like good eats. So, as often happens, I decided to alter our dinner plans a little bit... ok a lot. In the meat section I saw that whole chickens were on sale, and that i could purchase a 6 lb bird for less than the 3 lb already cooked shriveled little guy up front. I grabbed the chicken and suddenly I was inspired. I was going to make a real old school Leave it to Beaver Sunday style dinner. I had never roasted a chicken before, but all those moms on sitcoms did it and they always looked to yummy, surely I could pull this off.

I decided that store bought potato salad would have never hit June Cleaver's table, and what better thing to go with hot roast chicken than a baked potato. A twice baked potato, that would be better. So I grabbed some bacon and cheese and I was all set to bake some potatoes twice. I must add here that twice baked potatoes are a favorite of mine, but we never had them at home. As I remember it, an excuse was given that they were too much trouble; I think secretly my mom just didnt like them.

Sepaking of my mom, we recently got to spend a good amount of time together. Time with family has been rare these days as my parents live in a different country. She was home for about 2 months before she had to go back oversees and I got a little spoiled having her around. I must have been feeling guilty about the twice baked potatoes, I knew she would frown on them. So to appease my guilt, and bring a little bit of her back home, I decided to make two of her specialties: carrots and apple pie. She is known around the world (literally) for her apple pies, and I have always loved the way she made carrots.

So there it was my perfect old school Sunday dinner: roast chicken, twice baked potatoes, carrots and apple pie. It must be noted that they only thing out of this list I have ever made before is carrots. The twice backed potatoes turned out flawlessly. There is not much to say about the potatoes. Anything flavored with cheddar, bacon, butter and sour cream is going to be good; end of story. My moms carrots recipe is to microwave the carrots with a layer of water so they steam, a tab of butter and some sugar for flavoring. I used a little of the bacon grease instead of the butter to add flavor to the carrots and I steamed them on the stove with a little sugar. Easy as pie, well actually the pie was a little more complicated. Granny smith apples, nutmeg, cinamon, butter and pumpkin pie spice completed the stuffing. I have to admit I used a store bought crust. The most important thing in makeing an apple pie is to make sure that your apple chunks are all the same size so that they cook evenly. The pie crust was a little big for the pie tin that we had so I ended up with some extra crust. I used part of the extra to make a flower design on the top of the pie. The remaining crust was spread with butter, sprinkled with cimamon and sugar then rolled up and baked. It's like a pie appetizer, or a chef's snack, a must have with any pie baking experience.

Three out of four menu items were exceuted without much trouble, all turned out really well and I was quite happy with them. The chicken was trickier. I dont know if you have ever purchased a whole chicken, it is a little gross. I have only ever made one whole bird prior to this exercise and that was a turkey during the holidays. It received wide acclaim from everyone at the party where it was served. To be fair, however, I must also state that everyone who consumed it had also consumed a fair amount of poinsettias (cranberry juice and champagne, kicks mimosas in the butt) before the turkey so they may have not been the best judges.

The chicken was covered with feathers, they were tiny tiny feathers smaller than a strand of hair, but feathers nonetheless. They were everywhere. I tried to pull out as many as I could but after about 30 minutes I just had to stop so I could get the stupid thing in the oven. I was, however, able to get out all of the feather shafts. They were hard little plastice like tubes that were embedded in several parts of the body. My hope was that the small feathers would burn off in the oven, but I knew that the feather shafts would be unpleasant to chew on. After stuffing the cavity with bits of apple and onion I gave the outside a nice rub with some butter and seasoning. Finally, I layered the breast meat with strips of bacon. Please stop before you judge me, adding volume to the chicken breast keeps the breast meat moist. Additionally, as I had already used bacon in my other menu items I thought it would be a nice way to tie the flavors of the meal together. The bacon fat bastes the bird while it is cooking, remove the strips about 20 to 30 minutes before the chicken is done and you will still get a lovely brown skin that is quite tastey.

All of this would have worked perfectly except for one tiny mishap in the cooking process. I started the oven at 450, to give the skin a good browning, and then the plan was to turn it down to 350 to continue cooking the remaining time. Our oven is a little tricky and when I turned down the heat I actually turned the oven off and never restarted it. Luckily I did not open the door to the oven at all for the next 30 minutes so the temperature did not drop below 250, however it did make for some undercooked chicken when we first attempted to sit down for dinner. Another 20 minutes in a hot oven did the trick and the chicken actually tasted pretty good, if slightly drier than I would have liked.

My tips for raosting any whole bird are simple. I recommend stuffing the cavity (after you remove the gross bits) with anything aromatic. Carrots, apples, oranges, onions, and lemons work best in my opinion. Always coat the bird lightly with oil or butter. This helps the skin brown nicely. Use simple seasonings: salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder all work nicely. Add something on top of the breast meat. You can put stuffing between the skin of the breast and the meat itself if you do not want to eat the skin. If you are a skin person, add some stuffing to the outside of the skin and remove it before the final half hour of baking. Make sure to truss your bird. Trussing is simply tying the wings and legs so that they sit in close to the body, this ensures that they do not overcook while you wait for the body of the bird to come up to temperature. I skipped this step this time, but doing so led to wings that were quite dry.

Lessons learned from this cooking experience:
1 - Always check to make sure your oven is actually on
2 - If you are going to cook a whole bird plan time to defeather
3 - Don't forget to buy butchers twine, trussing is a must
4 - Bacon and cheddar makes everything better
5 - Apple Pie is America's dessert for a reason

Total Price of Meal: $30 (plus excellent chicken sandwhiches the next day)
Entrees, Wine and Dessert for 3 at a Resteraunt: $72