Roasted Chicken with Rosemary

I made this on Monday night. It's from the big Taste of Home cookbook from my mom last Christmas. One month away from Christmas '08 and I have made it to page...157. So like only 1/4 through in a year...oh well. I liked the way this one sounded because you put the vegetables and potatoes in all at the same time. By the way, rosemary is in Vicks Baby Rub, and last year Nathan had the croup. So every time I smell rosemary now, I'm like, wow that smells like Nathan with the croup. And whenever Nathan is sporting Vicks Baby Rub I want to eat him. Hee hee.

Roasted Chicken with Rosemary
1/2 cup butter
4 tbsp minced fresh rosemary or 2 tbsp dried crushed rosemary
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 roasting chicken (5-6 lbs)
9 small red potatoes, halved (why 9? seems arbitrary)
6 medium carrots, halved lengthwise and cut into 2 inch pieces (I just bought baby carrots)
2 medium onions, quartered

In a small saucepan, melt butter and stir in the seasonings. Place chicken on a rack in a roasting pan; tie drumsticks together with kitchen string (I don't have kitchen string so I skipped that part). Spoon half of butter mixture over chicken. Place potatoes, carrots, and onions around chicken. Drizzle remaining butter mixture over vegetables. Cover and bake @ 350 for 1 1/2 hours, basting every 30 minutes. Uncover; bake 30-60 minutes longer or a meat thermometer reads 180 and vegetables are tender, basting occasionally. Cover with foil and let stand for 10-15 minutes before carving.

Okay so my chicken was not all the way thawed when I stuck it in the oven. It was frozen because I bought this chicken to make this recipe the week before Steve went to Haiti, then with all our busyness I just didn't have time to make it that week, but I didn't want it to spoil so I had to freeze it. I took it out Sunday morning to start defrosting to make Monday night. Monday at lunch time I pulled it out of the fridge because it was still pretty frozen. By the time I put it in the roasting pan it was quite cold but not really frozen (or so I thought). I thought I might have to add like 30 minutes to the cooking time or something. Well, I put it in the oven at 3:30. I pulled it out at 7:00 and it was still not done!! So we did not actually eat this on Monday night, even though I made it then. We had nachos on Monday night. While the kids were watching a settle-down movie at 7:30, I was deboning chicken. We had it for supper last night though. I do love chicken leftovers, even when 100% of the chicken is what is left over. The chicken was yummy and moist and flavorful. The vegetables were wasted because there was barely any cooking liquid to cook them in...I'm not sure if I'll try this one again or not...maybe you'll have better luck, as long as you start with a totally thawed chicken.