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Roast chicken dinner- elegant, tasty and best of all- homemade!

Written by Cheryl Stauffer

Here's a menu for an elegant homemade meal that is very impressive, but not a lot of work. Lemon-pepper roasted chicken, steamed carrots and rice. Me? Roast a chicken? Of course you can! Here's a step-by-step guide from start to finish for this menu. Prep is minimal, cook time a little longer, but you can sit back and relax during the cooking!

Buy a whole, ready-to-cook chicken (2-3 lb) at the grocery store- free-range would be ideal, but not necessary. For the rest of the menu you will need one lemon, lemon pepper, dry white wine, whole carrots and rice. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Rinse the chicken inside and out. Pat the outside dry. Put the chicken in an oven safe dutch oven (I use a cast iron pot with a lid). Pour 1/3-1/2 a bottle of wine over the chicken.
Cut the lemon in half, and squeeze the juice over the chicken. Put the lemon halves in the body cavity. Brush the chicken with olive oil and then sprinkle a good coating of lemon pepper all over the chicken. Put the lid on and put the pot in the oven. If your lids seals tightly, you should be in no danger of chicken dry out.
This will cook for around an hour and a half. Peel your carrots, and slice them diagonally (or circles, it really doesn't matter, whichever you are more comfortable with). Put them in the steamer over water, cover tightly with the lid, but don't turn the stove on just yet.
Measure your dry rice into a microwave safe casserole- I use 1.5 cups long grain rice with 4 cups water. Cover and put in microwave and set the time for 22 minutes- don't turn it on yet. When there's about 15 minutes of cook time left for the chicken, turn on the stove for the carrots, and start the microwave.
Steam the carrots for about 12-15 minutes, then turn off the heat. When the hour and a half has passed for the chicken, take it out of the oven and check the temperature with a meat thermometer- we don't want anyone getting food poisoning! The internal temp of chicken should be 165-170 degrees. If the chicken is at least 160 degrees, you're okay, because the temperature will rise that final few degrees while you let the chicken rest and prepare the sauce (if you want- see below**).
Let the chicken rest about 10 minutes (or whatever time is left on the rice). Resting ensures that all the juices redistribute throughout the meat making it extra juicy. For a sauce that no one can resist, pour juices into a heavy saucepan.
Take the pot that the chicken cooked in, put it on the stove, and turn the heat on medium. While the pot heats, measure 1 cup of the wine you cooked with and when the pot starts to sizzle a little, pour the cup of wine in and scrape up all the tasty brown bits (this is called deglazing).
When the brown bits are all incorporated, pour that into the saucepan with the other liquid. Put that saucepan on high heat (you can put it on a separate burner while you are deglazing the chicken pan), add one chicken bouillon cube and boil for 5-10 minutes. While this is boiling, put about 1/2 cup of the wine in a measuring cup and add a tablespoon of cornstarch. Whisk thoroughly.
When the sauce has boiled and reduced a bit, VERY SLOWLY whisk in the cornstarch mixture and whisk until sauce thickens- about 5 minutes. Taste it and add a little salt if you need to- a shot of lemon juice adds a bright note as well. Serve the sauce over the chicken and the rice- it is delicious over both.
You can have all the prep done before work, and just pop everything in the oven/microwave/stove when you get home. This recipe honestly took longer to type than it does to do all the prep involved! Once you have done this a few times, it will become an everyday meal. Enjoy!