Saturday, January 29, 2011

Tastes a Little Like Thanksgiving

In our house, my husband rarely cooks. On the few occasions that he does, once he forgot to turn off the burner and left a frying pan of scrambled egg remnants cooking until it was charred. Thank goodness I smelled the burning eggs!  He doesn't even grill, whenever he does everything turns out blackened even if it wasn't meant to be. The one thing that he is really good at however, is baking the perfect whole chicken! Every time he roasts a bird, it always comes out perfectly cooked and juicy. What's his secret? Beer, Butter, and Maple Syrup.  He puts a few pats of butter between the skin and meat.  Then he drizzles and brushes on maple syrup all over the bird.   Just enough to give the bird a bit of sweetness and color as it bakes.  Season with salt and pepper and bake at 375 degrees.   A 1/2  hour into baking, he takes it out of the oven and pours 3/4 of a can of beer into the baking pan to cook for another hour.  He bastes the chicken at the next 1/2 hour mark.  How long your chicken bakes depends on how large your bird is.  If you run a knife through it and the juices run clear it's good to go.  To accompany the roasted chicken, I wanted to use up some of the potatoes we got from the farm.  We still have a good bushel of potatoes in storage down in the basement.  So I made mashed potatoes and a side of sausage vegetable stuffing.  When the chicken was ready, I tool some of the chicken juices to make homemade gravy.  Doesn't this look like a mini Thanksgiving?
My husband doesn't cook very often, but when he does, it's a real treat!  

15 comments:

  1. Great minds think alike - we had the big traditional pot roast last night LOL, love the tip of maple syrup!

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  2. In our house I'm the one that burns things on the grill and does the not so good cooking. The chicken sounds so good, I think I might try that one soon, I haven't baked a chicken in a long time.

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  3. You're reminding me that I have some maple bourbon glaze leftover from Thanksgiving in the freezer. Time to use it up! I'm gonna try your husband's method with it.

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  4. I am starved! for your husband's chicken. It sounds delicious and the entire meal makes me want Thanksgiving. ;)

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  5. I meant to ask if you need any of the heirloom tomato seeds I saved from last year.

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  6. It does sound like a mini Thanksgiving and looks like it too, yummy! That is a very interesting way to do a chicken..sounds like it's worth a try.

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  7. Oh, that looks wonderful.........as I sit here at 5 a.m. HUNGRY!!! Wish I could reach right through this screen!

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  8. Maple Bourbon glaze JGH??? I have Maple, I just bought bourbon.... wait nope, that was dark rum for baked beans... which by the way would go perfect with a maple baked chicken. Ummmmm

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  9. Yum...that looks like the perfect dinner!

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  10. It's morning here, and I haven't had my breakfast yet, but I already want dinner! YOUR dinner!

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  11. I've never heard of a chicken getting glazed like that. Good thing your husband is good at building garages and things around the garden, eh?

    Next time you make that chicken invite all of us commenters over for dinner!

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  12. That does look great! My husband rarely cooks inside. He grills OK, but sometimes things don't get as done as they should. He recently got a hair to make chili using apple juice and brown sugar, which he read about somewhere. I refused to eat it because of the extra calories. I prefer to do the cooking, and Larry loads the dishwasher.

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