What to do with all those chickens??

Being the frugal wife that I am, I tend to always pick up whole chickens when they are marked down at Kroger. My husband, who is a TOTAL food snob and for the most part dislikes chicken unless it's deep fried, found this receipe on foodnetwork.com. It's a Tyler Florence recipe... and it's AMAZING. In fact, my husband even muttered "I never knew chicken could taste this good".

What makes it even better, is that it turns into delicious chicken noodle soup! We tried the same chicken noodle soup recipe with a pre-roasted chicken from the store, and it wasn't NEARLY as good as when we used our Tyler Florence chicken.

Here it is:

1 (4 to 5 pound) free-range chicken
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 lemon, halved
1 head garlic, halved
1/4 bunch each fresh rosemary, thyme, and parsley
1/4 cup olive oil
11/2 pounds red new potatoes


Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Rinse the chicken with cool water, inside and out, then pat it dry with paper towels. Season the cavity with salt and pepper, and then stuff the lemon, garlic, and herbs inside. Place the chicken, breast-side up, in a roasting pan. Tie the legs of the chicken together with kitchen twine to help hold its shape. Toss the potatoes around the chicken. Season the whole thing with a fair amount of salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Roast the chicken and potatoes for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Don't forget to baste the chicken with the drippings and rotate the pan every 20 minutes or so to insure a golden crispy skin. The chicken is done when an instant-read thermometer says 165 degrees F when inserted into the thickest part of the thigh (the legs of the chicken should wiggle easily from the sockets too.) Remove the chicken to a platter and let stand for 10 minutes, so the juices settle back into the meat before carving. Serve with the roasted potatoes on the side.

We usually do it without the potatoes, but have done it with and they are delicious as well. We have found that when basting every 20 minutes, we tend to have to add chicken stock because sometimes there aren't a whole lot of drippings.

This recipe is SOOOOO good. And fairly frugal. We tend to use dried spices except for we always somehow manage to have fresh parsley on hand as it is (convenient for our soup recipe as well).