Chicken Vesuvio (New Food #16)

Last night I wanted to do something Cool for our C&C group. I've always loved preparing HUGE meals and having the C&C'ers over always gives me a reason to make something fun or better.

Last night I made a roast chicken... well actually 2 of them! No Frills (a grocery store in Ontario) had a sale on whole chickens last week so I picked up 2 - 4 lbs chickens for $6.00 each. It was a great meal.

Chicken Vesuvio:

1 whole chicken (about 3 3/4 pounds)
1/4 cup of olive oil
3 Tablespoons of lemon juice
4 cloves of garlic, minced
3 large backing potatoes, peeled and cut lengthwise into quarters
Salt and Lemon Pepper

Preheat oven to 375F. Place chicken, breast side down, on rack in a large shallow roasting pan. combine oil, lemon juice and garlic; brush half of oil mixture over chicken. Set aside remaining oil mixture. roast chicken, uncovered for 30 minutes. Turn chicken breast side up. Arrange potatoes around chicken in roasting pan. Brush chicken and potatoes with remaining oil mixture. Season with salt and lemon pepper seasoning. Roast chicken and potatoes, basting occasionally with pan juices, for 50 minutes or until meat thermometer inserted into thickest part of chicken thigh, not touching bone, registered 180F

~~ Makes 4 to 6 servings.

WOW was this good! What I didn't do right (and just realized now) was the putting the chicken on a rack! I just laid them on the pan. I cooked one in a glass baking dish and the other in a foil one we had left over. It worked well.

I also didn't have lemon pepper seasoning so I used some lemon and herb seasoning. It was really good.

I served with potatoes it was cooked with (oh yeah cut those smaller, they cook faster) as well as beans and carrots.

Enjoy!