HO HO HO& Merry Christmas! This Cheap$kate Santa comes bearing GIFs not gifts, but you don't have to wait until the early morning of December 25th to open your pictorial presents!
'Tis the time of year where I set the table with a cornucopia of eye-popping delights for you to indulge in.
Have you been bad or good this year? Well, I'm not judgmental whether you've been a do-gooder or the naughty type, so read on.
While not a brightly wrapped package sitting under the Christmas tree waiting to be opened, you can watch my GIFs anytime. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just check out the animations below for an eyeful.
The letters, GIF, stands for Graphics Interchange Format and is a short video, graphic, or photo clip, that play in a loop, that is, it keeps repeating. There is usually no audio and the clips last for a few seconds each. You can read all about a GIF by clicking here.
I use GIFS to show a cooking technique; how a recipe looks as it bakes, fries or boils; the slicing or chopping of an ingredient; and sometimes I make them just for fun.
So keep on scrolling and feast your eyes on my 2017 roundup of GIFs past. And click on any recipe name to see the scrumptious recipe/review blog post.HappyHolidays!
Roast chicken and herbs belong together. If you have a herb window box or small herb garden then this recipe is for you. Even dried herbs will work quite well. My latest recipe video of Roast Chicken with Rosemary is the best of both worlds.
Rosemary is quite a pungent herb that is easy to grow. I have a large bush of it just outside my patio, and I offer clippings to my neighbors anytime they want some. Rosemary is a perennial so you an cook with the needles all year around. Just remove the needles from the stem and you are ready to start cooking. My recipe calls for about 2 tablespoons, but use as much, or as little, as you like.
Chicken is a tasty canvas that absorbs flavorful marinades and spices easily. I get whole chicken for less than a buck per pound so the price is right for this pullet fan.
My Roast Chicken with Rosemary can be adapted for any favorite chicken pieces you can get on sale - I like to cook with budget leg quarters and you can add rosemary to chicken breasts, too.
The only prep is loosening the chicken skin around the breast and legs. Wash your hands and slip your finger under the breast meat first, it's the easiest way to start. Slide a finger (or two) left to right. I have used a wood spoon. Metal utensils may tear the skin too easily. But if you tear the skin it's okay; don't worry about it as you will get better the more you do it.
Leg and thigh skin is a little trickier to work with. Just loosen as much as you can - rosemary is so pungent, it only takes a few needles to flavor the legs and thighs. If you have large sprigs of rosemary, and don't want to fool around with all the skin, just slide a branch or two under the breast and add some more to the chicken cavity (of course remove the large sprigs before serving.)
Everyone and their grandmother has a roasting method for chicken, and it mainly revolves around how to keep the breast moist. Some go for brining the bird in a salty solution, ultimately too salty for me - you can't rinse it all off. A roasting bag works pretty well, although the skin stays soggy. You can cover the breast with foil the first hour of baking - a pretty good method. If you have a cast iron skillet then heat it up and add the chicken - this will reduce the cooking time because the dark meat cooks a fast as breast meat (plus this reduces the overall cooking time, too.)
Pssst...here's my secret: roast the bird upside down! And turn it over after an hour, so the breast skin get crispy. But you can use any method you like. Mainly cook chicken at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes per pound. You want juices near the thigh bone to run clear - no red or pink juices. A final check is when an inserted meat thermometer reads 165 degrees.
Any way you cook it, my Roast Chicken with Rosemary will have everyone at the dinner table asking for seconds....and thirds!
Roast Chicken with Rosemary - Video
Play it here. Video runs 2 minutes, 11 seconds.
My YouTube video link for viewing or embedding, just click here.
Ingredients (2-4 servings)
1 whole chicken - mine was 5 pounds.
2-3 sprigs of rosemary - Remove needle-like leaves from stem. Okay to use a tablespoon of dried rosemary.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Directions
Remove any chicken parts from the bird cavity. (You can salt and pepper the heart, gizzard, liver and neck and bake it with the whole chicken - neck takes 45 minutes to cook, but offal bits only take about half hour or less.)
Rinse off the bird. Use your finger(s) and gently separate the skin from the flesh. You don't have to totally loosen all the skin, just enough to get some rosemary needles on the breast, legs and thighs.
I loosen the skin around the breast tip (above the large chicken cavity) and wishbone/neck area. The skin may tear a little, but that's okay.
The leg and thigh is a little trickier to do. If you flip the bird on it's back you can work a finger into the thigh area. You only need to loosen some skin around the thick part of the leg.
Again don't to go overboard with the skin loosening. If you don't want to trouble yourself with all that, then just make 2 or 3 loose areas and slide in a whole sprig at a time. I would have 2 sprigs, one for each side of the breast and a half sprig for each thigh.
Bake the whole chicken at 350 degrees, for about 1 hour and 30 minutes, to 2 hours total. Baking time will vary depending on how big the chicken is. For my 5 pound bird I roasted it for an hour and a half. You can average 20 minutes baking at 350 degrees, per pound of chicken.
A whole chicken is ready when a meat thermometer inserted into the inner thigh (close to but not touching the thigh bone) reads at least 165 degrees F (74 degrees C.)
I usually just slice into the leg/thigh at the joint and look for clear juices. If the breast is done and the leg/thigh is not, first cover the breast in foil, then just slice the thigh to the joint (exposing the red part,) and let it bake a little longer, as you set the table. The leg/thigh may only need another 10 minutes more.
Hindsight
One way to get a moist chicken, without drying out the breast, is to bake it backside up, or breast-side down, to start. After an hour I turn the chicken over and finish baking breast-side up. Looks funny to start, but the breast meat ends up very juicy.
And the only trick is turning over a hot bird. You want to remove it from the oven first. I use two large spoons, one inserted into the neck and the other spoon inserted into the large cavity near the legs. Then pick up the bird and turn it over, breast-side up. Return it to the oven to finish browning the breast skin.
Another great way to roast the bird is the normal way (breast side is up), but on a hot cast iron skillet. Cast iron will hold heat and cook the dark meat quicker, about the same time it will take the breast to cook through. That's the beauty of this method - both dark meat and white meat are done at the same time. Plus you shave off 15 minutes of cooking time (it took an hour and fifteen minutes for mine.)
But you can cook your bird anyway you like.
This recipe works for chicken pieces like leg quarters or a whole breast. The cooking time is shorter, closer to an hour.
If you don't have rosemary, try out any fresh herb you can get. If I'm not familiar with an herb, add a little to a quick egg scramble to taste the cooked herb flavor.
Sometimes an entree is only skin deep, which suits my Roasted Chicken with Portabella Mushrooms just fine.
This earthy roast bird with mushrooms makes a delish dinner for the whole family, and if there is any leftover meat then shred it into a salad the next day.
And it couldn't be easier to make. Just slide thick sliced portabella mushrooms under the chicken skin, season the bird, and roast it until done.
While this cheap$kate recipe looks alien infected when it goes in the oven, the mushrooms cook down and the final presentation is a golden bird with brocade shapes of deep brown.
It's a tasty combination. Use my recipe as a leaping off point and substitute any type of mushrooms you find on sale, including plain white button mushrooms. The trick to to slice them thick, so they don't dry out while roasting.
Click on any photo to see larger.
For portabella mushrooms I like to scrape out the black powdery gills under the mushroom cap. Don't worry about getting it all out, though.
Mushrooms always show up at my local 99c only Stores and chicken is the cheapest protein -- so go hog wild with this recipe.
If leg quarters or whole chicken breast are on sale you can slide a few sliced mushrooms under the skin and bake them in an oven pan.
Moist mushrooms help keep breast meat from dying out, too. So next time you find fungi and poultry priced right, stock up and try my earthy Roasted Chicken with Portabella Mushrooms.
Ingredients
1 whole chicken - okay to use leg quarters or chicken breasts.
2 portabella mushrooms - depending on size. Thickly slice mushrooms. Okay to use button mushrooms or any you find on sale.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Directions
Rinse off whole chicken and allow to dry for a few minutes.
Brush off any dirt on mushrooms. Thickly slice mushrooms. For portabella mushrooms, I like to scrape out the black gills underneath the mushroom cap. It is easiest to use a spoon. Be careful as mushroom cap will break. It's okay to add any mushroom pieces to chicken.
The trickiest part of this recipe is to loosen the chicken skin. Wash your hands, then use your finger(s)and carefully slide them under the breast skin nearest the chicken cavity. Move the fingers left to right and press them forward to middle of the breast meat. If the chicken skin splits, that's okay. Hold it together and keep on loosening. Okay to use a wooden spoon or plastic spatula.
The breast skin is extra-attached along the middle of the breast bone, from neck to the cavity. You can separate it there, or just loosen skin on either side of breast. You can also enter the skin from the neck. I got about 4-5 slices on the breast meat.
The leg meat is a little trickier. You can work your finger in at the base of the breast meat. You only need to loosen enough to get get one or two mushroom slices on the leg meat. If you can work your finger all the way to the thigh meat then add some mushrooms there, too.
Once you've loosened chicken skin once, it gets easier next time, and you will want to keep baking chicken with other tasty ingredients just under the skin, like: lemon slices (or almost any fruit,) herbs and garlic.
Bake chicken in preheated 350 degree oven for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. To keep breast extra moist, cover it with foil for first hour, then remove foil, and finish cooking chicken until done.
Slice into dark meat to check for doneness. Chicken juices should run clear and the meat should not have any red showing.
