Chicken-Potato Roast

Well, this will be my last new recipe for a while...next week I am having surgery and who knows how long I'll be off my feet? I am thankful for the ladies of my church who will be bringing meals, it is a huge blessing. Hopefully only a couple of weeks before I'm back in the kitchen...anyway this recipe is from the Betty Crocker cookbook I mentioned a couple of posts ago. We had this Friday night with our homies Brad & Autumn. It's always risky making something new when you have people over, but I knew a whole chicken would be too much for the Pages to eat alone, and I really wanted to have them over, since the amount of time I have been working really cuts into my social life. Ha ha.

Chicken-Potato Roast
3-3 1/2 pound broiler-fryer chicken (mine was like 5.5 lbs)
1 medium apple, cut into fourths
1 medium onion, cut into fourths
2 cloves garlic, cut into fourths
6 medium baking potatoes
2 tbsp butter, melted
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp salt

Heat oven to 375. Fold wings of chicken across back with tips touching. Place apple, onion, and garlic in body cavity. Tie or skewer drumsticks to tail (I didn't have any twine or skewers. On the advice of my sister, I bound the drumsticks together with a never-been-used hair elastic. It worked great but looked funny). Place chicken, breast side up (I accidentally did breast side down, oops), on rack in shallow roasting pan. Cut potatoes crosswise into 1/4-inch slices about 3/4 of the way through. Place on rack around chicken. Mix remaining ingredients; brush over chicken and potatoes. Roast uncovered 1 to 1 1/4 hours (like 25 minutes per pound of chicken), brushing chicken and potatoes with butter mixture every 30 minutes, until juices of chicken run clear and potatoes are tender (meat thermometer should read 170). (I should note here that I had no basting juices. Maybe because the chicken was upside down? I don't know. But since my chicken was bigger, I kept it covered the first 90 minutes or so, then uncovered it for the last hour. It was golden brown and delicious looking. Until Steve had to flip it over to "carve" it. Then it looked not as nice, oh well.) Let chicken stand 10 minutes before carving; keep potatoes warm. Discard apple, onion, and garlic. Remove and discard chicken skin (they tell you to do this in an effort to make this recipe healthier, because the skin is REALLY fatty. But you can do what you want. If you like chicken skin just leave it on there).

So this chicken turned out quite nice. It smelled great, due to the garlic and onion. I thought the potatoes were very dry, but people still ate them. Also I couldn't get the stuff out of the "cavity" if you know what I mean. So it stayed in there. Again this was probably due to the fact that I put the chicken in upside down. I thought I was doing it right. I'm a nurse for goodness sake, I should be able to tell the top side of chicken. Oh well, I don't work with chickens, I work with people, so I guess it's okay. But I did feel silly as Steve was giving me a chicken anatomy lesson when he discovered he had to flip it over. Overall I would say the fellowship was better than the meal, but the meal was a good reason to get together to fellowship, know what I mean??