Smart Chicken - Merci!

I had a great idea on Sunday. I decided I would prepare and cook a whole chicken, which we could eat for dinner on Sunday and use in another meal later in the week. I was thrilled that County Market had the Smart Chicken whole chickens (my excitement probably scared the other shoppers when my husband held it up for me to see). I have to say I don't think I have ever actually cooked a whole chicken, so I went to myrecipes.com for help. This is what we ended up with---

Sunday's Dinner

Roast Chicken Provencale (Cooking Light)
As I already mentioned, I used a whole Smart Chicken. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the herbes de Provence that the recipe called for at at County Market, and it didn't occur to me that they might not have it until it was too late. So, we selected a jar of spices that was labeled "French" and "for chicken." It was actually a good find (my husband spotted it - not me), because it actually contained herbes de Provence. It also contained garlic, onion, and salt, so I only added a tiny bit of salt and garlic to the paste. I used a 3 lb chicken (the recipe called for 7 lbs), so I had a lot of extra paste. I had no problem getting the paste under the skin in most places, but I wasn't able to pull the skin away from the drumsticks. The nice thing about Smart Chicken is that it's not slimy the way most supermarket chicken is - and it's also hormone and steroid free. It costs a little bit more, but I think it's worth it.

The chicken was great! It was moist and had a delicious flavor. I also made the sauce included in the recipe - it's sort of like really watery gravy, but it has a good flavor. The only thing was that the chicken had such a good flavor from the herbs that I didn't feel like I could taste the sauce. We tried it by itself, though, and it was actually good! I used to foodsaver to store it in the freezer - I think it would be really good on egg noddles with maybe some peas for a light, easy dinner.

Brussels Sprouts with Brown Butter
With the chicken, we had brussels sprouts (boiled for 6 minutes) tossed in browned butter for about a minute. I almost burned it - yikes! I wish I still had fresh sage - that's how I made it last time, and it was great!

Roasted Potatoes
I saw nice small red potatoes at County Market last week, but they've been sitting in the fridge. I cleaned them, cut them into halves or quarters (depending on the size), and put them in a baking dish with a drizzle of olive oil, kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and a tablespoon of butter. I cut the butter into lots of little squares and spread them around. They came out good - almost a little overcooked, but good! I have no idea how long they took.


Overall, it was a good dinner! I'm using the leftover chicken to make Roast Chicken Chimichangas later in the week. My only regret is that I didn't use a larger chicken...maybe next time!