Poor Huey

While consider myself to be culinarily adventurous and there are many things I feel quite confident about whipping up in my kitchen, I still have lots to learn. One area of specific worry is my lack of experience with turkeys- yes, I've roasted a few turkey parts but never tackled the full bird. Our family feast at Thanksgiving last weekend inevitably included some turkey... and got me thinking. As Jeff and I are hosting Christmas this year, the turkey is something I do need to conquer.

The first step to confronting this fear (or so I thought), was to roast a chicken. I have only done this once before and when a local grocery store put their whole chickens on super sale, it seemed time to try it again. Jeff picked up a few groceries on his way home from work and came into the house chuckling about how he couldn't look at the bag of three fryers without naming them "Huey, Dewy and Louie". He then went on to choreograph an amusing chicken trio can-can that danced across our kitchen island.

Very funny.... until I went to handle the first bird for our dinner. Immobilized by stark contrast between a cute cartoon character and a dead chicken, I could not bring myself to touch the bird.  In the end, I directed the operation (and chopped all required accoutrements) while Jeff got Huey into the pan.

My contribution- a sprinkling of rosemary and fresh carrots

Yes- I TOTALLY wimped out. I redeemed myself in the end with some stellar gravy, mashed potatoes and veggies (along with some artful presentation, seen below), but it wasn't without some serious teasing from my dear spouse during the whole ordeal.

I used a recipe from my favourite food blog and the author's claims of a "juicy and flavourful" chicken really did come true. It was delicious. That being said... next time, I probably need to touch the raw bird. Jeff reminded me that I have two more chances to tackle this with Dewy and Louie waiting in our freezer.

I'll let you know how it goes.