Recipe: Lemon Roast Chicken and Parsley

This is a recipe that I learned years ago when I first started living on my own and have been roasting chicken like this ever since. I saw Chef Jeff Smith make a roast chicken on TV when he used to have his show on PBS and I adapted his simple recipe to give it more flavor. Whole chicken is often on sale for 79¢ to 89¢ a pound.

Ingredients

• 1 three to four pound chicken
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup olive oil (I use extra virgin for more flavor)
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon ground thyme
• 1 bunch fresh parsley

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F
2. Rinse the chicken inside and out with water and pat dry with paper towels.
3. Rub the chicken inside and out with salt and pepper.
4. In a small bowl, make a dressing with the olive oil, lemon juice, and ground thyme.
5. Rub the chicken inside and out with the dressing.
6. Stuff the chicken loosely with the parsley and bake uncovered in a roasting pan for about 1 1/4 hours.

Note: Originally the recipe did not mention if the lemon juice was from a bottle or not but if you are using juice from a large fresh lemon, go ahead and stuff the chicken with the juiced lemon halves as well to give more flavor.

My tip: It's easier to make the dressing in a glass measuring cup so that you can see the measurements and have one less bowl to clean.

The resulting juices at the bottom of the pan make a delicious gravy.

Cooking hint: Pour the salt and pepper into a small bowl and mix together well and use it to season the chicken. This way you have less of a risk of getting chicken juices all over the place, cross contamination, and makes seasoning food fast and easy.

Recipe: Sweet Potato Bread

One of the Thanksgiving sides seems to traditionally be a sweet potato dish. This year we boiled and mashed sweet potatoes instead of baking them and were left with quite some leftovers.

Since I made the mashed potatoes into gnocchi, I figured I'd change the sweet potatoes into something as well. The same evening after I made the gnocchi, I made sweet potato bread for the next day's breakfast.


There was apple sauce in the refrigerator which is a perfect replacement for oil in these mix and pour recipes to make it low fat. Try to use unsweetened apple sauce when replacing the oil in recipes otherwise your end result will be too sweet.


Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 4 tablespoons milk
• 1 cup cooked and mashed sweet potatoes

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F
   
2. Use a spray oil to grease a 9"x5"x3" loaf pan.
3. In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and spices.
   
4. Stir in the sugar, pecans, and raisins.
5. In another bowl, combine the eggs, applesauce, milk, and mashed sweet potatoes. Mix well.
6. Add the sweet potato mixture to the flour mixture and mix with a large spoon until combined.
7. Pour batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
8. Allow to cool for 15 minutes and then remove from pan.