Roasted Chicken

For starters, I do not like messing with raw chicken, ever.  Especially not a whole fryer of raw chicken....eew!  I wanted to use some of the goods from my new herb garden so I suffered through it.  Well, not really - Luke suffered because I am too grossed out to stuff the chicken, etc.  This is a super easy meal and pretty cheap when you consider how much it costs to buy a package of chicken breasts these days.  The added bonus is there is always meat left over to use in another meal.  Again I did not follow any particular recipe and according to my mother in law you can pretty much stuff whatever you want into the chicken and it will turn out good.  This chicken had a good flavor - it was light and springy.  It turned out delicious according to my husband and my brother; I liked it too.


Ingredients:
1 whole fryer chicken (4 - 5 lbs)
1 small onion, cut into quarters
2 lemons, collect 2 tsp lemon zest then cut both into quarters
2 sprigs fresh rosemary, leaves removed and finely chopped
1 spring fresh rosemary, left whole on the stem (to put inside the chicken cavity)
6 lemon balm leaves, finely chopped 
Salt, Pepper, Olive Oil


Directions:
- Make sure to rinse your whole chicken before you do anything else.  In most cases they have the neck and other gross stuff stuffed inside the cavity of the chicken.  Just rinse and turn it upside down and this will fall out.
-Use a grater/zester/microplane (whatever you have) to get about a couple of teaspoons of lemon zest.  Put this in a separate bowl.
-Quarter the onion and 2 lemons and "stuff" the chicken cavity along with one sprig of rosemary.
- Generously salt and pepper the outside of the entire bird.  Then follow with some garlic.
- Use a flavor injector to put some butter under the skin of the bird.  Use as much or as little as you want.  If you don't have a flavor injector but still want to do this you can make tiny slits in the skin and shove a pat of butter underneath.
- Combine the lemon zest, finely chopped rosemary,  finely chopped lemon balm and olive oil.  Use a pastry brush/bbq baster to spread over the outside of the chicken.
-Bake at 375 for 1.5 hours or until your meat thermometer reads 180 degrees.
Note: I did not measure the olive oil, just kept adding until I had enough to cover the outside of the chicken.  This will make the skin nice and crispy with your herbs - yummo!