Good Gravy!

The key to making a good gravy is simplicity!

When you take your roasted chicken out of the oven, remove the chicken and place the whole pan on your stove-top burners. My roasting pan takes up two vertical burners, and I put the heat on medium.
Add some flour. I don't measure so it's hard to say exactly how much, but a safe bet would be to add 1/4 cup of flour at a time. Whisk it with the pan drippings and scrape up the bits stuck to the pan with a wire whisk. Sometimes my bird leaves me with a lot of juices, sometimes not much, so depending on how much juice is there you may need to add water.

That's it! You just use the juices on the bottom of the roasting pan and some flour. Water if necessary. The seasonings from the bird usually make the drippings for the gravy flavorful enough, but if you want to add salt and pepper you can do that too.

Pour this gravy over some mashed potatoes and your chicken if you wish and you'll be in heaven!

Roasted Chicken

Below you'll find my two favorite Roasted Chicken recipes. The first is so amazingly good, but the second is pretty darn good too, and it's faster. You'll definitely have to try both recipes. I found them both on my favorite recipe site www.allrecipes.com.

I'll be posting some great recipes soon for what you can do with that leftover chicken you have from these fabulous roasted chickens.

Roast Sticky Chicken-Rotisserie Style

This recipe takes a while, but it's soooo worth it! If you don't have the extra time to make this, then the recipe in the post below is yummy too. But you have to at least try this one. It's the best in my opinion!

Ingredients

• 4 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon white pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 2 onions, quartered
• 2 (4 pound) whole chickens

Directions

1. In a small bowl, mix together salt, paprika, onion powder, thyme, white pepper, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and garlic powder. Remove and discard giblets from chicken. Rinse chicken cavity, and pat dry with paper towel. Rub each chicken inside and out with spice mixture. Place 1 onion into the cavity of each chicken. Place chickens in a resealable bag or double wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight, or at least 4 to 6 hours.
2. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F (120 degrees C).
3. Place chickens in a roasting pan. Bake uncovered for 5 hours, to a minimum internal temperature of 180 degrees F (85 degrees C). Let the chickens stand for 10 minutes before carving.

Juicy Roasted Chicken

I really like this roasted chicken recipe. It's not only fast and super simple, but it's oh so good!

Ingredients

• 1 (3 pound) whole chicken, giblets removed
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon onion powder, or to taste
• 1/2 cup margarine, divided
• 1 stalk celery, leaves removed

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Place chicken in a roasting pan, and season generously inside and out with salt and pepper. Sprinkle inside and out with onion powder. Place 3 tablespoons margarine in the chicken cavity. Arrange dollops of the remaining margarine around the chicken's exterior. Cut the celery into 3 or 4 pieces, and place in the chicken cavity.
3. Bake uncovered 1 hour and 15 minutes in the preheated oven, to a minimum internal temperature of 180 degrees F (82 degrees C). Remove from heat, and baste with melted margarine and drippings. Cover with aluminum foil, and allow to rest about 30 minutes before serving.

As Homemade as You can Get CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP

Tis the seaon for yucky colds and flu bugs! Hopefully you have stocked your freezer, not necessarily your cupboard, with the most soothing home remedy around. We've been having some amazing whole fresh chicken deals around here and my freezer is plenty stocked with them! Here is a fabulous recipe for homemade chicken noodle soup that is soul soothing whether your family is fighting a bug or not. Add some nice crusty bread (recipe to follow) and maybe a salad and you've got a good healthy soul satisfying meal!

INGREDIENTS:

1 Whole Chicken
Enough water to cover the chicken
1 batch of homemade noodles (see below)
1 large brown onion chopped
1 cup of chopped carrots
1 cup of chopped celery
1/2 Tablespoon of Poultry Seasoning
1 Tablespoon Seasoning Salt
Pepper to taste

1. Start early in the day. Take the giblets out of the chicken cavity and rinse the chicken thoroughly inside and out. Put it in a large stockpot and cover it with water a few inches above it. Put the heat on high.
2. Once the pot starts to boil turn it down until it's just simmering. Let simmer for about an hour.
3. Remove the chicken and turn off the heat. Let the chicken cool until it is cool enough to handle.
4. Once the chicken is cool enough to handle remove the meat from the bones and set aside in the refrigerator. Add the chicken bones back to the broth, turn the heat back on and let this simmer until about an hour before dinner time (be sure to have the veggies already chopped and ready to go). This will make an excellent flavorful broth.
5. An hour before dinner time add the chicken, carrots, onion, celery, salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning.
6. Immediately start making the noodles.


Noodles:

1 1/2 cups of flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1 T butter
1/2 cup ice water

1. In a large bowl sift flour, baking soda and salt. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in water until mixture forms a ball.
2. On lightly floured surface, roll dough to about 1/8" thick. Cut into 1/2" strips at your desired length.
3. add to soup and cook 2o minutes or until noodles are cooked through.