Best Ever Roasted Chicken!!!

The kids love cooking with me (and without me, too :) Lately, we have been baking our own breads and rolls/buns, freezer cooking extra meals for later, and canning (I'll show you all my canned stuff later).

We dug out this chicken recipe because whole chickens were on sale for $ .39/lb a few weeks back and I bought one. I have been making this recipe for years now, and have recently rediscovered how delicious it is. The whole family loves it, it's super tender and it is so easy to make you will not believe it!

I got the recipe off the internet years ago, and before publishing it here (so I could give credit), I searched for the same recipe and there it was! It's called Mimi's Sticky Chicken. You will need to start the night before so the chicken can marinate AND you have to start it 5 HOURS before you want to eat, but other than that prep work, it's easy easy!

Here's the recipe:
2 t. salt
1 t. paprika
3/4 t. cayenne paper
1/2 t. onion powder
1/2 t. thyme
1/2 t. white pepper
1/4 t. garlic powder
1/4 t. black pepper
3 lb whole roasting chicken
1 c. chopped onions **plus other additions, see below

Combine spices, clean chicken, rub spice mixture over skin, under skin, and inside chicken. Place in a Ziplock baggie, seal and refrigerate overnight. Preheat oven 250 degrees F. Stuff cavity with onions (**I also stuff in anything else I have on hand...celery, lemons, fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, etc). Place chicken breast down in a roasting pan. Roast for about 5 hours...basting occasionally with pan juices. Serves 4.

Since the oven is so low, it's hard to cook someting else in there with the chicken, but you could throw some sweet potatoes in and cook them a lot longer than normal (2-3 hours?) or let the warm oven rise your bread (not IN the oven though) and cook it right after you pull the chicken out - you can let the chicken sit for 15-20 min. or so anyway for the juices to distribute. Make some gravy out of the juices too...it turns out great.

So, if you want to try this recipe:

1. Start marinating the night before


2. Start 5 hours before you want to eat dinner...basically you will have to be at home that day (weekends or if you stay at home like me, ANYDAY!) ENJOY!

Here it is after 5 hours of cooking. Yum!