Whole Roasted Chickens

One of the few times that my dad said he really liked dinner was when Nick and I made whole roasted chickens with tons of garlic butter and herbs.  I wanted to try recreate the meal with EVOO instead of butter since we probably all clogged about ten arteries during that meal.  I modified the recipe from my October 2010 post by stuffing smashed garlic, whole sage leaves, and slices of lemon under the skin.  I made one lemon chicken and one sage chicken because I don't think my dad cares for the flavor of sage much but I love it.  Ah, the power of being the cook.  You get to do what you want.  I spread salt and pepper as usual and made sure to spread EVOO all over as well.  I also drizzled the EVOO inside the cavity too.  I'm not sure if that helped keep the moisture in, but I like to think it did.  The chicken did turn out really moist because I covered it in foil and wrapped it really tightly around the edges so that heat wouldn't escape.

I couldn't remember which way to lay the chickens, so even though they look pretty, they are actually upside down.  You should put the breasts up so that they can cook, not down like I have them. 

After an hour and a half I took off the foil to let it brown.  Some of the meaty parts near the joints were a little bit under done so we had to microwave them.  I guess that's what happens when they are upside down. The breasts were nicely cooked though so I don't really know.  At least next time I will remember which way to lay my chickens. 

I couldn't stand the fact that we didn't have any green in our dinner so I pulled out some frozen green beans at the last minute to make.

After everything was said and done, this meal turned out pretty well.  I started at 4:20pm and we didn't finish and eat until 8:30pm.  I had told Linda when I started that we better not eat very late since I was starting so early.  We still ate super late.  I was less than pleased about that, but I guess two whole chickens do take a lot of time to cook.  At the end I asked my dad what he thought of the chickens.  He said, "I don't think I like the taste of sage very much.  I liked the lemon chicken if the lemon wasn't so real."  So real?!  Lemon chicken without real lemon.  Aiya.  I should just put salt and pepper on a chicken and roast it for him that way next time.   He might like it more!