A Pause To Admire Nature's Beauty

This beautiful anole took a stroll across our patio railing.  Check out his beautiful scarlet throat.

Succulent Roast Chicken

This is a simple recipe for roast chicken.

1 3-5 pound brined chicken
10 or more garlic cloves, peeled
1 lime, cut in half
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Spice rub of your choice

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cover a shallow sheet pan with aluminum foil (for easy cleanup later).  Spray both sides of a baking rack with oil (also for easy cleanup later), using your Misto sprayer or a Pam-type cooking spray.  Set the baking rack on top of the foil-lined sheet pan. 

Stuff the chicken cavity with the peeled garlic cloves and the lime halves. 

Drizzle the chicken with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and plenty of your choice of spice rub.

Rub the oil/salt/pepper/spice rub mixture all over the chicken and under the skin.  Truss the chicken.   While this isn't absolutely necessary, it will give you a prettier, more evenly roasted chicken.  I'm no expert on trussing techniques.  Basically you want to pull the wings in tight to the body of the bird and tie the tips of the drums together.  You can do a Google search for "trussing a chicken" and find some good instructional YouTube videos that can demonstrate far better than I can.

Place the trussed or un-trussed chicken on the baking rack and put it in the preheated oven.  Roast for 30 minutes at 450 degrees, then lower oven temperature to 350 degrees and roast in 30-minute increments until done, checking the temperature of the chicken every 30 minutes with an instant read thermometer.  The USDA recommends an internal temperature of 165 degrees for poultry.  One of the great things about brining your poultry before roasting is that in addition to making it more flavorful it also allows it to retain tenderness and juiciness so you can easily roast it to a safe temperature without drying it out.