Perfect Roast Chicken

It has been unusually cold here for far too long now. I mean seriously, it's almost July and I'm sitting here with the heat on full blast! I thought my winter recipe repertoire would have been retired a couple of months ago but I was wrong. Given that I'm at the mercy of the weather, I just had to sneak in an early summer roast chicken. This is my all time favorite meal, it also happens to be my boyfriends favorite so we usually have this once a week, weather permitting of course. Not only is roast chicken fantastic as a dinner, the possibilities for leftovers are endless and a simpler meal you could not make. One of the best things about this dish is using the roasted chicken bones for homemade chicken stock, ahhhh winter, I mean summer, I mean what month is this?

RECIPE:

Chicken:
1 3lb chicken
1 small onion, quartered
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1/2 lemon, quartered
2 sprigs each fresh rosemary and thyme
1 tsp each salt and pepper
1/4 cup butter, room temperature

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Rinse chicken and pat dry, place in roasting pan breast side up. Sprinkle inside of chicken with S&P. Stuff chicken with onion, garlic, lemon, rosemary and thyme. Massage softened buter over the outside of the entire chicken. Cover and place chicken in the oven and baste every 30 minutes. Cook for about 1 1/2 hours or until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 180 degrees F. Uncover for the last 15 minutes of cooking time. Remove the chicken from pan, place tin foil loosley over chicken and let rest for about 20 minutes before carving.

Gravy:
2 cups chicken stock
2 TBS flour dissolved in 1/4 cup water
pan drippings

Place the same roasting pan used for the chicken on the stovetop placed over medium heat. Deglaze the pan with chicken stock and whisk briskly loosening all the brown bits from the bottom from the pan. Turn up the heat to med-high and slowly add the flour/water mixture stirring continuously. Slowly bring to a simmer and continue whisking for about 5 minutes or until thick. Remove from heat and serve.