I made a roast chicken this week and whoa daddy was it awesome.

Have you ever made a small tweak to a recipe and had it turn out incredibly better than the original?  That’s what happened to me and this chicken.

When I was living at home my mom used this roast chicken recipe pretty frequently…I’d say maybe once a month (plus leftovers that lasted for the rest of the week in soup, fajitas…*drool*); it was always one of my favorites.  When I moved out on my own I Crock Pot’d the recipe thinking it would turn out just as tasty, but was disappointed with the result.  Slow cooking is awesome, but the flavors just didn’t pop out the same way.  So yesterday I bit the bullet and roasted the chicken instead.  I say “bit the bullet” because it meant I had to wait 2 hours after getting home to eat delicious chicken instead of it being waiting in the Crock Pot for me when I returned from work.  QQ.

Besides roasting the chicken as opposed to using the Crock Pot, I made one other small change: I used an orange instead of a lemon.  When I whipped the recipe out I’d completely forgotten it required a lemon, so had not bothered to swing by the store and pick one up.  Luckily I had an orange left in my fruit bowl (dying a slow, slow death) and figured – hoped – that it wouldn’t ruin anything.  Surely, it did not.

Pictures of ingredients are SO INTERESTING.

What I love the most about this marinade recipe is that it seems to permeate the entire chicken without overpowering every bite.  It’s not assaulting, simply enjoyable.  It primarily makes the chicken taste like rosemary with slight honey undertones, but the citrus can definitely be tasted on occasion as well.  The drippings especially tasted like orange, and it was truly fabulous.

So here’s a delicious and ridiculously easy marinade for a roast chicken.  Actually I should amend that – I’m not sure it’s technically a marinade since no marinading is actually required….it’s more of a “rub” or “sauce”.  It still tastes fantastic, though.  I highly recommend trying it out…my whole apartment now smells like rosemary and chicken.  Mmm…

Also, roasting the chicken with sweet potatoes and carrots does nothing but improve the meal.  Just FYI. ^_^

Rosemary Honey Citrus Marinade

Ingredients:

• 1 medium-small orange or lemon (I vote orange)
• 2 stalks rosemary
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp red pepper flakes

Instructions:

• Juice the citrus into a small bowl.
• Pick leaves from the rosemary and add to the bowl with the rest of the ingredients.
• Vigorously mix all the ingredients together; the resulting substance shouldn’t be terribly liquidy, but should run enough to cover the chicken when poured.
• Pour over the chicken, making sure to spread over all parts.

Mary Gezo

Formerly of both n00bcakes and !Blog, the two magically become one on Spatialdrift; expect some lazy baking and serious nerditude. Also, I love semicolons.