We all sighed with relief when the ground hog did not see his shadow and it was declared an early spring it would be! He just neglected to tell us that it would be a stormy snowy wait starting with a 28” blizzard. Then at the beginning of last week it was another 10-14” by midweek 6-8” by the end of the week we were in the 4-6” and by the time Lyn and I pulled into the garage on Sunday afternoon they were saying not even an inch. You just have to laugh. We actually ended up with about 2” after it was all said and done and it did snow pretty much half of Saturday and all day and night Sunday just did not amount to much. Wait more snow on this Wednesday.

I love the snow fall that has huge flakes drifting slowly to the ground it can be memorizing if not hypnotic as you stare out into the bliss lost in memories of running around catching flakes with your tongue as a child. So what does one do on a snowy Sunday afternoon I decided roasting one of the organic Chickens I got from Whole Foods on sale last week, it was one of those lunch time shopping expeditions were you are armed with a list and you race around beating the clock, my list chickens, strawberries and lunch.  Returning to work Nicole directed, very nicely, the placing of all our bags in the lunch room frig. I got the fun job of throwing out someone’s long deserted and now disgusting lunch from who knows when. I am sure you all have an office frig that collects things. Anyway I babble….

Ingredients

• 1 whole organic chicken
• 1 lemon – sliced in ¼” slices
• ½ orange – sliced in ¼” slices
• 2 cloves garlic – slightly smashed or not
• Salt and pepper
• A couple of table spoons of room temp butter
• Coffee spice rub
• A few carrots sliced in 2” pieces
• One or two sweet onions quartered

How:

Rinse and dry the chicken

Salt and pepper the cavity

Stuff the lemon, orange and garlic cloves inside

Truss the chicken

Rub and place butter over the top of the dry chicken

Sprinkle with Coffee spice rub

Place in a roasting pan on rack

Drizzle some Olive Oil on the carrots and onion and distribute around the edge of pan

450 degree oven cook for 40-60 minutes until thickest part of thigh is around 165 degree.

Basting optional, I did at halfway point since the pan I used was to long.

Depending on the depth of the oven if you can have legs facing the back if not rotate pan ½ through.

If you feel the skin is getting to dark then tent with aluminum foil.

You can make pan gravy if you want deglazing with some white wine, I opted out since I was making some Russet oven bake fries.

How to truss a chicken

There are hundreds of ways and every one is correct I just use this methods cause I find it easy.

Start at the back of the chicken, tuck the wings under and tuck the neck cavity flap under. Taking some twine run it across the neck cavity along the groove where the thigh and body meet bringing it under the end of the drum stick crossing left to right bringing it to the top pulling the legs together and tying a knot. The uniform shape insures more even cooking.