Foodie Friday: Roasted Chicken

I realized today that I write an awful lot about food on a blog about being frugal. But, food is a HUGE part of my life. First off, I love to eat and secondly a realistic approach to not spending excess money is to prepare your own food. In looking at our budget, groceries are 20% of our single income budget, only surpassed by our rent which accounts for 50%. Which means, in order to write a blog on the joys of saving money to use toward debt, I have to capture the largest component of entertainment in my life- cooking!

Yesterday, I was "lucky" enough to have a early start at work, but that also meant that I was able to get home by 3:30pm. So why not cook a time consuming whole chicken??

Nick is slightly obsessed with making the PERFECT roasted chicken. I believe we have gone through 10 different recipes at this point. He has done his research on techniques to making the perfect bird. I can't complain since I benefit from this amazing meal each time.

But with him at work it was up to me to not mess this one up. I received a full tutorial by phone before I began. Nick had prepared the bird in a brined the night before, so the foundation was set for the perfect meal.

If you have never put your bird in a brined 24 hrs before the meal, I highly suggest you do. It provides the bird with a plump moist taste that a lot of birds lack after sitting in a roasting pan. Now if you have a rotisserie, you may be okay :) Also, may I come over to your place to use this so called rotisserie??

Once the bird is out of the brined, it is rinsed and then thrown into the roasting pan. I placed a quartered lemon inside the bird and then basted it with a butter and spice combo (Salt, Pepper, Chili Powder, Paprika, Oregano, Rosemary, and Basil). Today is the first time I realized that a stick of butter goes into this basting process. Oh well, I guess I won't be making Cooking Light with this recipe.

For the next 1.5 hrs, the timer is set to go off every 15-20 minutes for basting, and at 45 minutes the bird is flipped.

Once the bird is cooked it is pulled out and stood up on it's head to rest. This is suppose to allow the juices to flow into the breast meat. It reminds me of someone stuck upside down and wiggling their legs yelling, "get me out of here," but that's just me!

After all of this pomp and circumstance, dinner is served!

Buying a whole chicken is a great way to have a home cooked meal last at least two meals, depending on the size maybe two meals and a lunch leftover. We were able to get our chicken on sale this week for $.99 lb. so it was a very inexpensive meal. Add a little carb and some veggies and you have a tasty dinner :)

Have a great weekend and I hope a roasted chicken is in your future.