Roasted Chicken with Rosemary

Photo by Taste of Home

Winter (and this has seemed like a very long winter) always seems to put me in the mood for trying new recipes.  I tried two new recipes this weekend and hope to blog about the second one tomorrow. 

Our local market had roasting chickens for a good price this week, so I bought one.  I was looking for a way to roast it along with vegetables.  I looked at a few recipes on line and didn't see anything that appealed to me, but then I happened to be glancing through an old (1994) Country Woman magazine and noticed a recipe for Roasted Chicken with Rosemary which was a winner in that month's recipe contest featuring poultry. The photo showed a roasted chicken atop carrots, potatoes and onions.

I looked the recipe over and found that it was pretty much just what I'd been looking for.  I wanted to keep this kid-friendly, so I decreased the rosemary by quite a bit.  I was using fresh rosemary that I had frozen, so I just crumbled some of it up.  I also thought I would use half the amount of butter, but it really seemed dry partway through cooking (and I had so many veggies in the pan that it was hard to reach the broth to baste anything as the recipe directed) so I ended up adding more butter.  I think next time I might use half butter and half chicken broth.  One change that I made was to use cubed butternut squash rather than carrots.

The chicken turned out extremely tender and so flavorful.  I will definitely cook a roasting chicken this way again.  It did take a bit longer than specified, and even then the vegetables were a little bit too firm.  I think the mistake I made was not in using a covered roasting pan.  (I don't own one.)  I just used a 13x9 pan with a rack, and covered it with heavy-duty foil.  Next time, I will use a large covered Dutch oven that I have; that will probably work better.

All in all, we were very pleased with this recipe and considered it a keeper!  Maybe your family would enjoy it, too.