Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day and for me that means I am barred from the kitchen.  That's right, DH and the little GP's don't allow me to cook or clean up on Mother's Day.  The cleaning up, I can deal with, but the cooking is killing me today.  I've been reading so many blogs this weekend, and finding so many new recipes I want to try that I am antsy to get back in the kitchen.

Warning, this post is very long.....I can't help it, I love roasted chicken.......

Now if I were cooking today, something for myself, it would be a roasted chicken.  Next to a nice juicy steak, nothing beats a perfectly roasted chicken with homemade gravy and mashed garlic potatoes.  At least in my book.  And since I am still working on my steak technique, I would cook myself a roasted chicken.  Extra crispy skin, please.  And pass the gravy.

But since I can't, I will just have to blog about the one I made yesterday.  Guess, I had my roasted chicken after all. ;)

I wanted a simple roast chicken, nothing to herb-ey.  Since I will be using the left over chicken carcass (carcass, every time I hear that word I think of buzzards picking at some roadkill, isn't there a better word?) to make chicken stock because my freezer is out at the moment.     I was also out of a lot of fresh herbs, carrots, and celery, oh and to lazy to go to the store.  Usually my favorite recipe for simple roast chicken is Thomas Keller's method, dry the chicken inside and out, let the kosher salt rain down on the skin, sprinkle with fresh black pepper, truss, and roast at 450 degrees for about an hour.  But with this method comes a lot of smoke, maybe it's the pan I use or fatty chickens, I don't know.  I do know  I wasn't in the mood for being smoked out, and since it's 90 degrees here I couldn't open my windows,  I went a different route.