Roast Chicken and Artichoke Hearts Casserole

Sorry, I'm a might late with the post this morning. I went to say howdy to a new neighbor and time just marched on. The nice long chat was made possible by the fact that it's an unusually cool morning - only 68 degrees right now. Isn't that wonderful? Before you know it, it'll be down to 75 during the day and I'll be digging the fleece out of the closet. Ha.

I decided to try a different recipe last night for roast chicken, so hit Saveur's web site and picked  http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Saras-Roast-Chicken-with-Sage-and-Garlic There are a lot of different ways to roast a bird and this one made use of a HUGE amount of butter along with fresh sage, garlic and lemon, that was stuffed under the skin over the breast and thighs. As usual, I added my two cents worth to the recipe by adding about a half cup of white wine to the pan half way through the cooking process, but otherwise followed the recipe pretty much to the letter.  The wine was added because I really wanted a few pan juices and since I like doing my roast bird in a cast iron pan, it kept the vegetables on the bottom from getting too ossified.

While it's true the bird was moist and juicy, I'm not sure that it was any better than our usual method which doesn't call for darn near a whole stick of butter, and has a whole lot more flavor. Course, most of the time the big guy does our chicken on the weber rotisserie outside, so we're kind of spoiled in that respect. It wasn't terrible, it was just different and not exactly a cholesteral counter's best friend. By the way, I did not use any of the pan juices afterall since they were approximately 99.5 percent fat.

I was craving something different as a "with", so I mixed up a little artichoke heart casserole to go along with the bird. This recipe's adapted from Palm Country Cuisine, a Junior League cookbook from Lakeland, Florida that's been in my collection since the late 80's. Download Artichoke Hearts Casserole  I combined defrosted artichoke hearts from Trader Joe's freezer with light mayo, light sour cream, black olives, parmesan cheese, pepper, salt and red chili flakes then dusted the top with buttered crumbs and baked it for 25 minutes in the same oven with the bird. We really enjoyed this casserole with its subtle heat from the chili flakes and the distinctive flavor of the artichokes and it went very well with the roast chicken. I was going to garnish the casserole with a little crumbled cooked bacon when it came out of the oven and forgot. Geez - I seem to be doing a lot of that lately...mmm. Wonder what that means. 

Comments

[Mags]

Great looking bird! I'm such a chicken (get it?) when it comes to roasting them whole. Not sure why, but I always end up using recipes that involve pieces and parts.

That artichoke casserole looks heavenly. And... nice square picture too! Hmmmm..

[June]

Thanks Mags. We roast a lot of birds whole, then use the leftovers in casseroles or salads and the bones can be recycled into stock. Incredible what you can do with a $4.00 bird.