Vegan Roasted Chicken

Okay, not really.

I am gearing up for the 30 Day Vegan Workshop by, ironically, trying to get rid of some of the remaining dead animal flesh in our freezer. Along the same lines as "The sooner I eat all of this holiday chocolate and cookies and pies and deserts, the sooner it will be out of my house, and then I can start eating healthy again." Don't even try to pretend you've never said that to yourself.

So, I had two organic chickens in the freezer, which I thawed and used for an adulterated version of Tanya's Perfect Roast Chicken. And since it was a two-pack, I made two chickens figuring I'll be "de-meating" and freezing some of it for (sparingly!) future use. If, of course, Thomas did not wolf it all down first. He is a tween-aged growing boy, after all.

As I have never been a "chicken roasting" kind of person (I leave that stuff to David, generally), I was trusting that Tanya would not steer me wrong in handling (ick!) and preparing dead chickens. (I was right to trust the wisdom of Tanya). I stuffed our birds with grapefruit (I had a couple laying around getting juicy/soft), lemon, lime, red onion, fresh thyme from my sad little container garden, the last woody ends of cilantro from the other night (amazing how fragrant even the woody parts of cilantro are!), and Michael topped it off with some fresh chives from the garden (amazing how hearty chives are!).

It looked purdier pre-bird than post-bird.

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I plopped the stuffed birds on top of carrots, potoatoes and onions, and into the oven they all went. (Please note, Tanya, I have an actual roasting pan!).

Can't necessarily claim these are "happy" birds, but at least they are cozy and were fed "organic" vegetable matter when they were alive.
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One point five hours later, I pulled them out of the oven and let them "rest" for 20 minutes (they'd been working very hard in the oven). And, I have to say, I was duly impressed by their crispness.

They're not burned...they're crisp!

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This was just about one of the tastiest chickens I've ever partaken of. And, I'm really impressed that I made it! And, the veggies rocked! (Notice how there are more veggies on the plate than chicken...I think that's supposed to be normal).

Yes, that is my dinner plate, balanced on top of my notebook and a bunch of gardening books (and a cat toy on the side). I'm trying to wrap up my on-line seed order before spring has passed entirely. I need more hours in the day...or to get out of bed earlier. Not sure which is more likely to happen ;)