Housebound, Loving It, and a Recipe

 I didn't even leave the house today; that never happens.  But it just kept snowing and I had a lot to keep me happily occupied.  Saturday,  Dan and I shoveled flat roofs; we have four and two had so much snow we were worried about more added weight coming with today's storm.  Glad we got that out of the way and actually it was a lot of fun.  A good workout, a great view, and lovely, lovely snow.    I was tempted to jump off the roof when I finished, into the huge snow mountain I had made, but I suddenly worried I would be impaled with the long and sharp icicles I had broken and thrown off into that mountain.

The next day, Sunday, our church service was delayed a couple hours to allow time for road plowing.  After church, I roasted a five pound chicken and it is such a great recipe I have to share it.  I got it from Yankee Magazine.

Butter rubbed and spice/herb sprinkled and going into the oven.  

 Take your chicken and rub it all over with either an orange or a lemon, squeezing as you go.  Put one of the halves inside the cavity of the bird and leave it.  Melt or really soften 3 T butter and rub all over the chicken.  Then, in a small bowl, mix salt, pepper, paprika, onion powder, and 1 T sugar.  Sprinkle this all over the chicken.  Then place in a roaster, cover it, and bake 425 degrees for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.  Mine was done at about 2 hours.  Let it rest for 20 - 30 minutes before you even allow yourself to cut in to it.  This is one fine tasting, tender, moist and scrumptious chicken!  Then:

 Take the carcass the next day, place in a large pot with water to cover; throw in chopped up carrots, leeks, onion, celery, poultry seasoning, peppercorns, salt and tarragon.  Bring to a boil and let it simmer for a good couple hours until every thing is so soft and falling apart.  Strain every thing out of the broth and you have some incredible chicken stock to freeze and have on hand for your future recipes.  I added some more vegetable to the broth, brought it to a simmer until the new veggies softened, and then pureed the whole pot.  Delicious!

When the broth had cooled, it was so fabulous that I poured some in a glass and truly drank a glass of rich and healthy broth.

I am working on a really fun art project that I couldn't wait to start on today but I wouldn't let myself do a thing with it until I finished all my Monday chores: bathrooms, floors, and laundry.  And then the chicken broth.  Here's a sneak peak.  When it's all done, I'll explain what and why in a future post.  Tonight we caught up on some Downtown Abbeys that had built up while we were in the USVI.  A good day!

We will be doing this again later this week.  Cheery and cheer.