Slow Roasted Chicken and Vegetables

Sometimes my big strong man likes meat and potatoes, and tonight, that’s what he made us for dinner. He slow roasted everything so the chicken would be tender and juicy, and while it took over 4 hours to cook in the oven, it was well worth the wait. I have to admit that besides what you see on this plate,

I also had two pieces of sourdough bread dipped in the juices. Yummmmmmmm!!!!

Slow Roasted Chicken and Vegetables

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken (our chicken weighed almost 4 pounds)
• 8 medium sized Yukon gold potatoes
• 12 baby carrots
• 14 cloves garlic
• 1 stick salted butter
• olive oil
• Vegeta
• basil to taste
• pepper to taste
• salt to taste

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 250 degrees.
• Remove most of skin from the chicken. (We didn’t bother to remove the skin from the wings.)
• Remove the neck from the inside cavity of the chicken.
• Rub olive oil all over the outside of the chicken.
• Then rub Vegeta all over the outside of the chicken.
• Peel the garlic, and then place all the garlic cloves and the carrots inside the chicken.
• Grease your baking pan with some olive oil.
• Place the chicken in the center of the pan.
• Wash the unpeeled potatoes and then slice them in half.
• Sprinkle the potatoes with basil and Vegeta.
• Cut your stick of butter into 20 pieces.
• Place all but one of the potatoes slices around the chicken.
• Put a slice of butter on the cut half of each potato.
• Put two slices of butter inside with the garlic and carrots.
• Then take another slice of butter and tuck it between the chicken leg and breast. Do the same thing with the last slice of butter, putting it between the other leg and chicken breast.
• Then take your one remaining potato slice and stuff inside the cavity of the chicken so it holds the garlic and carrots and acts as a “door” to keep everything inside.

Here’s how our chicken and potatoes looked before we baked it:

• Bake uncovered on 250 degrees for about 3 hours and 45 minutes or until the chicken is cooked to 165 degrees. Cooking it on a slow temperature like this will make the chicken really moist and tender.
• The carrots and garlic won’t be soft at this point so take the baking dish out of the oven and with a fork, remove the carrots and garlic from the inside of the chicken, placing them on the baking dish with the potatoes.
• Increase the oven temperature to 325 degrees and cook for about 30 minutes so the carrots can get tender and the chicken and potatoes will brown a little more.
• Sprinkle the potatoes with salt and pepper to taste.