Rosemary Garlic Roasted Chicken

Preheat your oven to 350 F. First, you’ll want to rinse the chicken and remove giblets and such from the cavity if you bought a chicken with them. Set the chicken aside.

Remove the paper from 3 or so cloves of garlic. Now, stuff the cavity of the chicken with the garlic and the quartered lemon and onion as well as a couple sprigs each of rosemary and thyme.

Next, you’ll finely chop about 2 tablespoons each of rosemary and thyme and put them in a small bowl. Do the same to another 3 cloves of garlic (you can use more depending on your taste), and throw that in with the herbs. Then drizzle in about a tablespoon of olive oil. Add some salt and pepper to taste. Stir it all up so it’s all coated in olive oil.

Now, you get to get your hands dirty! Rub the mixture all over the outside of the chicken.

Arrange the celery and carrots in the bottom of a 13″x9″ pan and place the chicken on top of that, breast side down. Pour some chicken broth in the bottom of the pan, enough to coat the bottom but not so much to cover the vegetables.

Pop the pan in the oven and roast for about 3 hours, turning the bird every 45 minutes or so, first on its side, then the other side, then on its back. Turning it this way helps distribute the juices throughout the bird as it roasts. Add more chicken broth to the pan as needed. There’s nothing worse than dry chicken and the broth will help keep things moist.

After about 3 hours a thermometer inserted in the thigh away from the bone should register 180 F. If so, remove pan from the oven and DON’T carve it yet! If it hasn’t reached 180 F keep it in the oven a few minutes longer.

Let the chicken sit in the pan for about 10-20 minutes to allow the juices to settle before you carve otherwise you’ll lose all of those yummy, moist juices. After 10-20 minutes, carve, serve and enjoy!