Roast Chicken Dinner

I typically don’t make whole chickens, but once in a blue moon I do.  I’m more of a white meat kind of girl – but since my boyfriend likes legs and wings the bird doesn’t go to waste.  We happened to be given a whole chicken, so I decided to whip together a dinner that could have been straight out of a Martha Steward magazine.

I cleaned out the chicken carcass, rinsed it down with water, and then put it into a basket which I had set inside of a casserole pan. This way the grease could drip from the meat and the air could evenly circulate around the bird crisping it all up … instead of crisping the top and leaving the rest a greasy, soggy mess.  I went into the cabinet and concocted a dry rub mixture, adding salt, black pepper, garlic powder, Mrs. Dash Garlic & Herb seasoning, McCormick chicken seasoning, Trader Joe’s 21 seasoning salute, and oregano into a bowl. I mixed it together then evenly rubbed it over the skin (top and bottom), then separated the skin from the meat and rubbed the seasoning over the meat as well.  I stuffed a medium quartered onion into the cavity and popped it all into a 350 degree oven and baked it for roughly 1 ½ hours.

I cut some washed yellow skinned potatoes into chunks and put them into a pot of salted water.  When the chicken had 30 minutes left to cook I put my potatoes onto boil. I didn’t peel my potatoes because the skin is about as thick as red skinned potatoes. Plus I like my mashed potatoes with skin on them. I mashed them up with a teaspoon of margarine, some skim milk, salt and pepper.

I had some French style frozen green beans from Trader Joe’s.  I took half the bag and defrosted them in the microwave, drained the water from them, then tossed them with minced garlic. I then popped the green beans onto a non-stick baking sheet, which was coated with non-stick cooking spray and roasted them off in the oven for about 10 minutes.

Since I had some fresh tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden, I decided to chop them up and make a childhood favorite – tomato, onion and cucumber salad. It’s simply pickling cucumbers, sliced, tomatoes sliced or quartered and scallions that are chopped. Before serving I simply toss it with 1 tablespoon of the dressing of my or my guests’ choice.

At dinner time I heated up some canned chicken gravy and opened a small can of jellied cranberry sauce. It was literally like Thanksgiving dinner … and what’s even better was it was delicious WITHOUT my beloved stuffing.

My whole plate for dinner was 10 points plus!

QUESTION:

Do you like Thanksgiving-esque dinners?