Roasted Chicken AKA 2 Hour Thanksgiving Dinner

So the majority of the time when I cook something, I see a show or read an article or see an ingredient somewhere that I want to try making. Its only a few days before Thanksgiving and my Mom and cousins will be handling the cooking on that day, which is cool cuz then I just get to enjoy the meal and the 6 hours of prep time outside the kitchen. Lucky for me I caught this bit with Eric Ripert on the Today show and was instantly inspired to roast a whole chicken. Something I have done many times, but when you hear Eric talk about it you contemplate immediately hopping in your semi-dependable '01 VW Jetta and navigating morning rush hour gridlock down to the local butcher for an organic free range clucker. Eric Ripert is the kind of humble, knowledgeable, highly successful chef who makes me think even I could bear the mantle of multiple Michelin Stars. He knows more about cooking than I could ever find on Wikipedia, but communicates it in a way that is (no pun intended) easy to digest. I could never live up to Eric's bird so I decided to take it a new direction.

Roasting a chicken in a Reynold's Oven Bag is more than likely considered sacrilege by not only Mr. Ripert but everyone from the home of the Eiffel Tower and Champagne. Well parlez-vous David?....that's what I did, hold on to your stars Eric.

Monsieur Ripert's stuffing recipe is probably out of this world, but as I took stock of my kitchen I realized I would have to truck down to Kroger just for the ingredients he used. I did notice celery, onions, and half a loaf of week old bread, that was gonna be Sunday's French toast, and I figured I better just throw together something easy. I based my recipe on this simple one I found on about.com.

TOTAL PREP TIME: 35 minutes
TOTAL COOK TIME: Around 1.5 hours for a 5 lb. Chicken

• 8 slices of old bread cut into 1/2" pieces
• 3 stalks of celery diced
• 1 small onion diced
• 1/3 cup butter (little over 5 tbsp cut from the stick)
• garlic powder
• fresh ground pepper
• dried thyme
• fresh rosemary (had it in the fridge)
• 2 eggs
• splash of chicken broth
• Sea Salt

• 1. Melt butter in skillet
• 2. Saute onions and celery to soften
• 3. Mix veg/butter with bread chunks in a large bowl
• 4. Add seasonings, couple tsps garlic powder, equal parts thyme and rosemary, ample salt and fresh cracked pepper, beat eggs separately and incorporate
• 5. Add enough chx broth to keep the mix moist, but not too much to mushify the bread

Set aside and clean up those ingredients if you are anal retentive about your space like I am.

If Eric Ripert's chicken is the Mona Lisa mine is a color by numbers from Highlights magazine I used to read as a kid. It goes a little something like this...

• Pre Heat Oven to 350
• 5 tbsps butter
• 2-3 tablespoons of Mrs Dash Chicken
• kitchen twine
• 1 Reynolds Oven Bag
• fresh ground pepper
• sea salt

• 1. Soften up the butter in the microwave
• 2. Mash the Mrs Dash into the butter (I love Mrs Dash in general because unlike other seasonings whose first ingredient is always salt, Mrs Dash has no sodium which allows you to control exactly how much salt you would like to add)
• 3. Rub the butter mixture UNDER the skin of the chicken as well as over the legs and wings
• 4. Stuff the cavity with all the stuffing you can possibly cram in there
• 5. Truss the bird thusly.
• 6. Cover every buttery inch with salt and pepper

Place in prepared bird into oven bag, tie, and slit the top of the bag a few times. Plop your delicious bag o poultry in a Pyrex baking dish and roast in oven 18 mins per pound.

I steamed up some green beans to serve as my side dish. Choose asparagus, maybe some squash, or even some fresh beets to accompany your little birdy on the journey down to your stomach.

This chicken will come out so juicy and flavorful that if you are anything like me you will only require a utensil for the stuffing and you mouth will perform double service as a wet nap (excuse my manners Mr. Ripert). The stuffing is also amazing, with the right amount of chicken broth in the mix it comes out a lot like a savory bread pudding. The sweetness of the wheat bread's simple carbs blend perfectly with the herbs, salt and pepper.

My wife said "This is good, but it could use some gravy.....or something." ARRGGGGGH, not everything needs sauce, dear. She summarizes the meal like this, "put that in the chicken, put it in the bag, put IT in the oven, then eat."

But there are certainly plenty of juice and drippings in the bag to prepare a simple gravy; thickened up in a saucepan with a rue made with equal parts flour and butter.

Think of this meal as an NFL preseason game, with all the important stuff happening in about half the time, and preparing your stomach for the culinary SuperBowl that is Thanksgiving.