Roast Chicken

I actually made this a few nights ago, but haven't gotten around to it until now.  I had been craving roast chicken for a long time, and had been talking about it for weeks.  Finally I gave in and bought a chicken.  It was called a young fryer, but since that's all they had that's what I bought.  I thought maybe it was meant for frying, but it turns out a "young fryer" is just a young, small chicken.  Between 7-13 weeks old and up to 4 pounds.  I think mine was about 3 pounds.  Not very big, but there are only two of us to eat it.

It sat in the fridge for a couple of days because once I got it home I realized I had roasting pan.  I thought about getting one, and even looked at a couple of stores, but really didn't want to buy a giant pan since I only had a little chicken.  Once a couple of days had passed I realized I needed to cook the chicken now, and decided a springform pan would do the job.  Terrible idea.  While there were no juices when I put the bird in, it created tons of juices which then leaked out of the pan and all over the oven.  Talk about having a lasting chicken smell.

The chicken turned out great though, despite having leaked all over my oven.  I even managed to catch enough juices for gravy.  I didn't even do anything really special to the bird.  I separated the skin from the breast, sprinkled in some Krazy Salt, rubbed it underneath the skin, sprinkled some more in the cavity, then tied the legs shut making sure the skin of the breast was pulled all the way over the meat.  Baked at 375 for an hour and a half.  To go along with the chicken I made mashed potatoes with cheese, and grilled peppers and zucchini:

No gravy for me, but Doug said it was good.  Also, we both like the potato skins, so I don't peel my potatoes before dicing them to boil.

The day after my leaking chicken I did some quick online searching for the manual for the oven in our apartment.  Part of my discovery was that the oven is 24 inches across, measuring the widest part on top.  Yep, teeny tiny oven for the teeny tiny kitchen.  But the best part was that it has a self-cleaning function.  Sure, it makes the apartment stink like you wouldn't believe, but wiping up a few ashes is much easer than properly scrubbing an oven.

Already we have had leftovers from this bird: my altered version of Souper Chicken Tetrazzini.  I used more chicken (closer to 2.5 cups), more spaghetti (an entire 1 lb box), a can of cream of chicken soup instead of cream of mushroom, more cheese, and 1 can of milk instead of given measurements for milk and sour cream.  I also needed a 2.5qt dish instead of a 1.5qt dish.  That means even more leftovers!  Plus, I still have a carcass in the fridge with enough meat for pot pie.  I think I'll be buying more chickens.  And a roasting pan.