Cabin Fever
For the past 2 days I’ve been experiencing cabin fever. I’ve been at home since Sunday and will probably stay in for a few more days because Atlanta is currently under ice. On Sunday there was a snow storm–and I use the word storm loosely–that dumped 5 whole inches of snow on the ground.
That’s a lot of snow to people native to the South, but for us Northerners this is nothing. The problem hasn’t been the amount of snow, but more so due to the lack of snow plows and sand trucks that the city possesses. The news quoted a paltry amount of somewhere around 10 snow plows and sand trucks!! What is the point??? A city that’s becoming increasingly colder still relies on a warm day to melt the snow before it ices over. Guess what? We’ve had nothing but below freezing temperatures and rain so a thaw is not likely to happen until Friday.
*Sigh* oh well….today will be another day of movies, white wine and this chicken. I am not a huge fan of the bird, to be quite honest the only bird that I love is Duck. I find chicken to be quite bland, flavorless and too often dry. What’s the key to battling these issues??? Marinating the chicken in a simple concoction for a day or two. The result is a juicy, tender bird that is loaded with flavor. I usually eat chicken sparingly but find myself gobbling down huge portions of this bird and…..drum roll please…it’s healthy!
Roast Chicken
marinade
2 cups orange juice
juice of 2 limes
5 smashed whole garlic cloves
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp paparika
1/2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp salt
1 chicken bouillon
1 stalk rosemary, bruised with the back of a knife
1 handful of chopped cilantro
1 5 lb whole chicken, butterflied*
steak seasoning
3 carrots peeled and sliced into 1/2 inch slices
3 stalks of celery chopped
1 onion chopped
*To butterfly the chicken, simply cut the chicken along the backbone.
Combine all ingredients of the marinade and stir to combine. Place chicken in a large ziplock bag and pour marinade over chicken. Seal and place in refrigerator for 24 hours. After 24 hours remove from fridge and bring to room temperature.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place carrots, celery and onion in an even layer in a 13×9 baking dish. Place chicken on top of the vegetables. Sprinkle liberally with steak seasoning. Place into oven and bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes. If chicken browns quickly, cover with a foil for the remainder of the cooking time.
Remove from oven and allow to cool before cutting.
I like to add cornstarch to thicken up the pan juices to form a gravy to serve with the chicken.
MMM that looks yummy wish I could put on a pair of ice skates and slide on over lol
There is nothing more comforting than roasted chicken. I’m making it for dinner tonight before we get hit by the storm in the North East.
eh eh…your chicken looks gooooooooood.
At least you have electricity to cook. When I lived in NC, we used to have ice storms where we’d go for days with no electricity – no cooking, no heat. I don’t miss those days at all!
Judy, thankfully we haven’t had any power outages in our area, but others have been affected.
OH gosh.. did you know I had to literally dig my tires out of ice once when I was in NYC… up north. but there’s no way you can go anywhere… I was in the city and the car just slid, and slid, and slid… lucky enough…. I was able to park..
The Chicken looks just lovely, I like eating clean like this during the week as much as possible with maybe a serving of rice.. if I’m super hungry.
I heard the last snow storm was pretty bad, but it was because Bloomy dropped the ball when it came to keeping the streets clear.
Your ingredients for the marinade alone has me seriously thinking about making this for dinner soon.
Last week was a long one. Miss A is finally returning to school tomorrow. A real sign of things getting back to normal.