Weekend Highlights & Sunday Roast Chicken

What a great weekend we had.  It was really just the Mr. and me all weekend, but sometimes those are the best ones.  Here's a few snippets of our weekend together:

We went to see The Five Year Engagement on Friday night... I love a good movie date night!

On Saturday we had a belated birthday celebration for Alex-- his gift back in March was two tickets to see the White Sox (his team) play the Red Sox (my team) here in Chicago.  The forecast looked ominous, but the evening turned out to be near perfect (albeit a little chilly).  Also-- much to my surprise-- I apparently purchased "really awesome" seats.  Wife points for me.  Happy belated birthday, Alex-- and go Red Sox!

P.S.  The Red Sox won.  :)

We finished the weekend with a lazier Sunday-- I ran some errands, Alex had his first soccer game of the season, and we finished off the weekend with a Sunday dinner of Roasted Chicken.  I don't usually get fancy for Sunday evenings, but we had a chicken in the freezer (they were BOGO when I picked up our Easter chicken), so it was actually a pretty cheap and delicious dinner.  I've included my recipe below.

Sunday Roast Chicken

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken
• 2 lemons
• 7 cloves garlic
• 2 Tbs. butter (at room temperature)
• 3 Tbs. fresh herbs, finely chopped and divided *I used rosemary, sage, parsley, and thyme
• 1 tsp. black pepper, divided
• 1 tsp. kosher salt, divided
• 1 1/2 cups dry white wine
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Meanwhile, remove the insides of the chicken, rinse and pat dry with paper towels, and set aside.

Wash and zest one of the lemons.  Mince 3 garlic cloves.  In a small bowl combine lemon zest, minced garlic, butter, 2 Tbs. herbs, 3/4 tsp. black pepper, 3/4 tsp. salt to form a paste.  Loosen the chicken skin with your fingers and rub about half of the paste evenly under the skin.  Rub the remaining paste all over the outside of the chicken.

Cut both lemons into quarters and stuff 6 of the quarters inside the chicken cavity, reserving two.  Cut 3 of the remaining garlic cloves in half and add those to the cavity of chicken.  Tie the chickens legs together with kitchen string, tuck the wings underneath the bird, and place on a roasting rack lightly coated with cooking spray.  Pour 1 1/4 cups white wine into the bottom of the roasting pan.  Keep an eye on the pan and make sure to add additional wine (or chicken broth if you have it on hand) if the liquid in the bottom of the pan starts to evaporate.
Roast for 25 minutes at 425 degrees.  After 25 minutes turn the oven temperature down to 350 degrees.  Bake until a thermometer inserted into the thigh registers 165 degrees (a good rule of thumb to follow is that this will take approximately 20 minutes per every pound of chicken).

While the chicken begins to roast, combine the juice of the remaining 2 lemon quarters, 1/4 white wine, and olive oil.  Add to that mixture the remaining 1 Tbs. herbs, 1/4 tsp. black pepper, 1/4 tsp. salt, and garlic clove (minced).  Use this mixture to baste the chicken every 15-20 minutes.

Once the chicken is fully cooked remove it from the oven and let it rest for about 10 minutes.  Then carve and enjoy.  I served ours with green beans and roasted potatoes.