Second Day's the Best Day

Yesterday was a bit of a #fail in the kitchen. It started off well enough. I made some breakfast burritos that I had been craving on Saturday but never had because brunch was at Lou's City Bar instead (a #fail story for another day). The breakfast burritos I made contained scrambled eggs, bacon, diced tomatoes, diced onions, fresh cilantro, cumin, and a dash of cayenne pepper. Yum.

I've given up chocolate for Lent (another story for another day, though not a #fail one), which has been more difficult than I thought it would be. I think about chocolate a lot, which makes me realize how much I normally eat chocolate without even thinking about it. Regardless, I've been looking for non-chocolate sweets. Grapes and dried peaches are good. Gummy bears and worms are also yummy, but not good for me and wallop too much of a sugar punch. So, I found this recipe for cinnamon scones. I had almost all the ingredients, and as an added bonus, I think cinnamon's even supposed to curb your hunger.

I couldn't find cinnamon chips at the grocery store, so I bought butterscotch chips instead. Butterscotch chips remind me of my grandma's baked goods, and I was happy to have an excuse to use them. I'll share the recipe on another day, but long story short: after I pulled the scones out of the oven, I left them to cool on the baking sheet before transferring them to the cooling rack. All well and good until I transferred them to the cooling rack and, in the process, lost more than half of the half-cooled scones on the floor. It was a disaster. They tasted okay, as I picked through the pieces remaining on the cooling rack, but they tasted 15 times better when they were actually fully cool the next day. The crumbliness and the flavor had coalesced a bit more and they were delicious for breakfast the next morning.

This roast chicken was better the second day too. As I continually note, I often underestimate the amount of cooking and effort involved in certain dishes, so by the time this chicken was ready last night, I felt a bit apathetic toward it. Moist, yes, but that wasn't enough to get me excited. Today, though, I had it in my sandwich: mmm. Mm mm mm. It wasn't an exceptional sandwich: chicken, cheese, stone ground mustard. The chicken made it exceptional though. All that time the previous day was worth it for that sandwich the next day. So, without further ado, via Blue Kitchen, Roast Chicken with Potatoes, Lemons and Capers:

Ingredients
5 to 6-pound chicken

olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 lemons

1 sprig of fresh rosemary + 2 tablespoons rosemary leaves

10 to 12 small red potatoes, scrubbed and halved

1 medium onion, peeled, halved and thickly sliced

2 tablespoons capers

Directions

• Preheat oven to 450º F.
• Remove giblets from chicken and save them to put in the baking dish with your chicken (or you can throw them out if you don't like them (for shame!).
• Rinse chicken inside and out and pat dry with paper towels.
• Season the inside with freshly ground salt and pepper.
• Halve a lemon and stuff it inside the chicken, squeezing to release some of the lemon juice.
• Stuff the rosemary sprig into the cavity too.
• Rub the outside of the chicken with olive oil and season all over with salt and pepper.
• Lightly oil the inside of a large ovenproof skillet or a low roasting pan.
• Place the chicken breast up in the pan and roast in the oven for 20 minutes.
• Meanwhile, toss the potato halves with a little olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
• Slice the remaining lemon into a half dozen or so thick slices, and drizzle with a little olive oil.
• Reduce the heat to 375º F and scatter the potatoes around the chicken, along with the rosemary leaves (and giblets if you're cooking them).
• Roast for another 20 minutes, then add the onion, lemon slices and capers.
• Roast until chicken is just done, another 25-45 minutes or so (depending on the weight of your chicken). A quick-read thermometer should read 165º F when inserted into the thickest part of the thigh, and juices should run clear.
• Pull the chicken out to a cutting board and let it rest for five minutes before carving.

These vegetables didn't do much for me besides season the chicken, so serve the potatoes with the chicken if you'd like and prep a savory arugula salad to serve as well. Don't forget to save some chicken for your sandwich tomorrow too!