Happy Earth Day

There are so many inspiring Earth Day columns on websites, so I won't make a single suggestion as to how to celebrate today. BonAppetit.com has "how to join a csa", "how to eat green", and "sustainable recipes." Foodandwine.com has "eco-friendly foods" and "sustainable seafood." Pick your favorite cooking site or environmental site -- far be it from me to reinvent the wheel.

I will brag that I roasted my chicken on Monday (the one there wasn't time for after gardening), and it made my day again yesterday. A roast chicken is one of the most perfect homey meals I can think of. It fills the entire house with rich aromas. It satisfies both the starving diners when matched with roast vegetables and gravy and the diet-conscious who just want to pick at the tender meat. A lot of people think roasting a chicken takes forever, like a turkey maybe, but a 6 lb. chicken cooks in only 1 1/2 hours. Monday night while the chicken roasted, tantalizing us with sizzling sounds and mouthwatering smells, I graded papers, paid bills, and cleaned a bathroom before it was time to make the salad, pasta, and gravy. It really is an easy dinner (as long as you get it into the oven in time; reference Sunday's failure).

And a roast chicken is very earth-friendly. The whole chicken costs less than parts do, price per pound, as well as saving on the costs/wastes of factory cut-up and packaging. The carcass can be used to flavor soup broth. Plus, I almost always get another two meals from one roast chicken, so the cooking-energy is saved as well.

Tuesday (yesterday) is my crazy-maniac-mom day. Up at 6:40, breakfast & lunch making for the kids, quick clean-up, out of the house at 8:30 for 9-10:30 tennis practice, tutor Xiaolin at 11:00. Dash home to change clothes and grab lunch (taboule in fridge yesterday = yum + filling), drive 20 minutes away to teach a group of homeschooled kids at 12:30, and back home by 2:30. Then comes the afternoon on-slaught of a few household chores, mail/e-mail/return phone calls, welcome kids home with snack and homework pep-talk, drives back and forth to viola sectional and quartet practice. But at dinner time, when everyone's stomachs were growling, I had my leftover roast chicken to save the day! I sliced up the meat, shredded cheddar and lettuce, slivered red peppers, uncapped some Green Mountain salsa (my favorite, from Vermont) and sour cream, and rolled it all into tortillas. Quick to prepare, quick to eat when everyone is headed in different directions. And I still have enough chicken meat left to make chicken salad (with celery, dried cranberries and pecans).

I most frequently use this method, a hybrid recipe which melds the pre-salting magic made famous by Zuni Cafe's Judy Rodgers, Ina Gartens roasting times and gravy, and lots of recipes that call for lemon, garlic, onion, and thyme.

Roast Chicken
The night before or the morning of cooking day, rinse and dry a 5-6 lb. chicken, preferably organic, or raised sustainably. I remove the one big fat-glob that is sometimes near the cavity opening. Salt it all over, generously, inside and out. I use kosher salt or sea salt. Cover and refrigerate. 2 1/2 hours before dinner, remove it from the fridge, rinse it and dry it again to remove excess salt, and let it lose that ice-cold fridge feeling. Preheat oven to 400.

Put the chicken on a rack in a roasting pan that leaves an inch or two (no more) of space around the chicken. Drizzle olive oil all over the dry chicken. Cut a lemon into quarters, squeeze the juice all over the chicken, stuff the spent peices into the chicken's cavity along with 1 quartered onion and a big bunch of thyme. Sprinkle the chicken generously with salt, pepper, and dried or fresh thyme. Roast it for about 1 1/2 hours, basting (if you must) no more than twice (or you let all the heat out of the oven!), or until the internal temperature at the thigh is 180. Don't wait for the little button-thingy to pop, or the poor bird will be over-cooked. Remember, don't slice it up until it rests on a cutting board, covered for at least 20 minutes, or you sacrifice the juiciness.

Gravy
If you like gravy (my daughter wants no part of roast poultry if there's no gravy), Ina's method is truly fool-proof and speedy. Pour most (not all) of the fat out of the pan and reserve it. Add a cup of chicken broth to the remaining drippings, set the pan over med-high heat, scraping up the flavorful bits crusted to the pan, and bring to a low boil. In a little bowl, whisk 2 tbsp. reserved fat with 2 tbsp. flour, and add to the pan, whisking and cooking until thickened. Turn it down low, add a bit of broth if too thick, and leave it there while you cut up the chicken. Perfect!