happy thanksgiving

Hope you all had a great thanksgiving weekend! Amity and I ended up cooking dinner for two on Thursday, since we were headed to Charleston on Friday. Since two people can only eat so much in one day, we roasted a chicken instead of a turkey. Not that either of us seemed to miss dried turkey meat whatsoever.

I did want to do something different with the chicken this time to make it a bit more special. So I opted for a slow roast at 275F for about 3 hours. The results is crispy skin and fall off the bone meat that is juicy and tender. Pretty similar to a rotisserie chicken really. I still did everything else pretty much the same - air dried it for 24 hours, trussed it and seasoned it just before cooking (with salt, pepper, and rosemary in the cavity).

For sides, we went pretty traditional. Mashed potatoes, cranberry/orange relish, brussel sprouts/apples/bacon, chicken gravy, apple sauce, and of course - my favorite - a huge pan of stuffing! The stuffing was twice baked with day-old bread, roasted chestnuts, pecans, onions, carrots, celery, apples, and homemade bratwursts (made by Nate/Lisa/Haskell in VT). Before baking the stuffing (twice) I liberally soaked everything in homemade chicken stock, so that by the time we ate it, all the chickeny goodness was completely baked in. By far my favorite part of the meal.

Along with all this delicious food, we had a great bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape that Amity had brought back from her trip to France 18 months ago. Perfect wine for a great meal!