Yes, I had nasturtiams growing in the garden. Couldn’t help myself with garneshing the plate with these edibles.
I love when all hands are on deck for family meal, here is Booie helping out.
Plated and ready to serve.
Most mornings, I check in with the New York Times cooking friend app, either before coffee or after exercise, and sometimes, if I’m being honest, I peruse it while out walking. I know that walking should be a sacred experience, one in harmony with nature; yet, as a modern human, my brain craves novelty. That damn phone consistently pulls at me, seeking to give me a dopamine hit.
I’ve made it for an informal family dinner. I’ve made it for a fancy formal dinner. I’ve made it for informal and fancy guests. It works every time.
Always love a white shirt. Double win with the monogram.
With the giddy-up holiday season rolling in faster than a thunderstorm, it’s a recipe I recommend having in your back pocket. It will not disappoint, and you will come off as a Roasted Chicken Provençal rock star.
mise en place city-side on a regular Tuesday…
Kids helping with the mash.
you just have to step up to all that stuff going on in your world and plate some mashed potatoes.
Hello, beautiful Lexi and handsome Connor
family dinner….
Here is a first-time beginner tip: do not put the legs or thighs skin down in hopes of creating a crisp skin for the first 25 to 30 minutes; that precious skin will stick to the pan, and when you try to turn it over carefully, it will tear from the meat. Position the chicken pieces skin-side up and have a good baster on hand. That pan juice is liquid gold, and by basting the meat at reasonable intervals during the final roasting session, you will have gorgeous, crisp skin and juicy, delicious meat. I’ve even added more vermouth to the pan as the cooking session progresses. Keep a good eye on the whole thing, and you will be absolutely delighted.
Here it is served country-side. I spy I very cute baby in the left-hand corner.
Flowers by Lexi. Food by me. Tomatoes from my summer garden.
Sourdough by Booie.
Most everyone loves a brownie and a small scoop of vanilla ice cream.
These geraniums have been around for years, sometimes stored in the basement in the off season, and sometimes just brought into the house and put in front of a sunny window.
Crudité with green goddess dipfrom the dinner I served the night before. I repurposed the red pepper by trimming the bottom so it would sit flatter and giving it a fresh cut on the top.
I also served warm olives with orange peel and thyme. About a decade ago, my sister gave me the linen cocktail napkins.
Peanut in Paris in front of her former place of employment, Pierre Frey. She’s now in graduate school at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London. She traveled to Paris with her sister Elizabeth via Amsterdam on a gallery scouting week-long tour.
A week ago, I taught my youngest daughter how to roast a chicken while she was driving through the French countryside to a chateau. Yes, doesn’t that sound so romantic?
Here is Peanut’s first Roast Chicken!
She’s a good cook and can navigate a kitchen flawlessly. She needed a little confidence boost, and I was happy to deliver. We traded shopping lists and directions via text message (she was a passenger, she wasn’t driving). She was a little concerned about navigating between Celsius and Fahrenheit, so I told her to wiggle the leg of the bird and to use her sense of sight, smell, and touch to see if it was cooked through.
Roast Chicken is a go-to dinner; now, she has this in her repertoire. She used onions and carrots, while I used radishes, carrots, and shallots, as that is all I had on hand and I did not want to go out to market. Both birds were a success.
My Roast Chicken with Radishes, Carrots, and Shallots.
The table is set for four. I bought the blue linen napkins while in Barcelona, Spain, when my oldest daughter Caroline was studying abroad. We used them for our Thanksgiving Dinner there. They always bring back good memories.
Buttered egg noodles and sauteed broccolini rounded out the meal.
While I spend most days in denim and a tee, one of my favorite party tricks is to run upstairs right before we sit down and put on ‘dinner clothes’.
I like roasting a chicken without consulting a book or recipe; I’ve done it often enough, and muscle memory is good. Of course, you want to make sure it is cooked through. I usually use a Thermometer to do this. If a thermometer isn’t available, you can make a tiny cut into the thickest part of the bird and look for clear juices, not red or pink.
Peanut, here are the tips in post form for future reference:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove the neck, liver, and giblets, set them aside, rinse the bird with cool water, and pat it dry inside and out with paper towels. (I freeze the liver to make pate at a later date.) Season liberally with salt and pepper. Stuff the bird’s cavity with a lemon cut in half (give it a little squeeze), a head of garlic cut in half, and a small handful of fresh thyme. Tie the legs with kitchen twine and tuck the wings out and back behind the bird. Place the bird in a roasting pan or baking dish. Slice some onions and carrots and surround the bird with the vegetables, or use what you have on hand, like radishes, carrots, and shallots. Be sure not to crowd the pan as you want roasted vegetables, not steamed. Baste the bird and the veg with melted butter, season again with salt and pepper. Pop into the oven. Periodically stir the veg and baste the bird with the butter and juices. Roast for about an hour and begin to check for doneness. After removing from the oven, let rest for 10 to 15 minutes before carving. Enjoy!
Two of us had fresh strawberries for dessert; the others had olive oil cake with strawberries and ice cream!
