Fall's Roasted Chicken

If you could only see fall, looking out my windows, you'd still think it was August.  The catalpas are still as green as can be, although the beans are long and droopy.  The birch looks as fresh as the first part of summer.

But the morning air is crisp  and you can smell that a change is coming.  Some of the nights are verging on the chilly.  Very few of the leaves have fallen so I expect them to fall in a whoosh.  Can't wait.

It's the time when you can revert to long, slow cooking.  My favorite kind.  Here's a roasted chicken  recipe that I yearn for.

Fall's Roasted Chicken

3  lbs of bird.   Or so,   A whole one.  (Martha says you shouldn't  wash or rinse them, that you spread the germs,  however,  I'm an old girl and I like to wash them off and pat them dry.  A ritual.  M is right on the money, though, about washing your hands after.)

Some softened butter or olive oil.  Rub that over the bird.  Put it into a roaster.

Add these veggies.

2-3 carrots, peeled and cut into 3-4 inch chunks.
1-2 red onions, peeled and quartered
2-3  Sweet potatoes and/or yams,  not peeled, cut into chunk
2 red apples,  not peeled, but cored and cut into quarters,  put those flesh-side down in the pan
1/2 cabbage,  cut into 8ths

Put everything in the roaster.  Salt and pepper.  If you want a little more spice, add 1/2 tsp of Ginger and Cardamom and sprinkle it over the bird and vegg both.  Add more if you like.

1 cup good quality apple cider/juice,  pour that over the vegg,

Put the pan  in a 300 degree oven for at least an hour. Because every bird a little different you'll have to watch it closely the last 15 minutes or so.  It might take an hour and a half.   Baste the bird in the apple juice every 15 minutes.

The chicken fat will melt into the juice, which is fine.  If the vegg get too dry, move them about a bit in the juice.  The sugars and pulp in the apple juice will burnish the bird,  so it looks like copper.  And the vegg will be succulent.

Wonderful, wonderful.