Sometimes a girl just needs to make some comfort food for dinner.

She needs the scent of something delicious filling the air in her kitchen.

She yearns for the promise of something healthy and delicious to soothe the growling in her stomach after a long day at work.

That night, my friends, was last night at my house.

I bought an organic roasting chicken, about 4 pounds, plump and beautiful, over the weekend. It was waiting patiently for me in the fridge.

I pulled out my big yellow stoneware roasting pan, and rigged a little roasting rack out of some aluminum foil.  Honestly, I have a rack somewhere in one of my cabinets, but I didn’t feel like digging around for it. So three long, rolled up strips of foil lifted my lovely chicken off the bottom of the pan so that it wouldn’t be soggy on the bottom, sitting in its own juices while it roasted.

I had rinsed the chicken in cold water, patted it dry with paper towels so that the skin would brown as it baked, and rubbed it down with truffle oil, an olive oil infused with truffle flavor, which is very earthy and aromatic.

I removed the packet of liver and gizzards and just spread them out on the bottom of the pan, knowing that English mastiff Abby would enjoy that snack later.

I filled the cavity with big chunks of onion and garlic. Then I opened a jar of organic minced garlic, and spread about a tablespoon of it all over the bird.

I sprinkled it with a generous amount of sea salt and pepper, as well.

I covered it with foil and stuck it in the fridge all day. My son Jared put the bird in the oven at 350 degrees F for a couple of hours in the late afternoon, then removed the foil and finished browning it for about 20 minutes.

I removed it from the oven when I got home from work, and let it stand for fifteen minutes while I made the rice and the peas and sliced the fresh, locally-grown tomatoes.

When I cut into that bird after the fifteen minutes passed, the juices had redistributed through the meat and they drizzled out enticingly onto the cutting board when the knife slid through the breast.

The boys each had a leg quarter, and we grown-ups had juicy breast meat. The broth from the roasting pan was drizzled on the meat and the rice, and it was spicy, garlicky and delicious.

The cream peas and plump, ripe tomatoes from the farmers market just added to the home-y and comforting meal. The only thing that would have made it better would have been one of my “FatMama’s” homemade buttermilk biscuits oozing with melt-y fresh butter!

Here’s a buttermilk biscuit recipe you might like to try, as pictured below.

The strawberry pie that I served the boys for dessert finished everything off perfectly. (Click here for the recipe)

I love it when dinner comes together easily and tastes so delicious.

What did you have for dinner last night?

_________________________________________________

Use this chart to determine how long to roast your chicken:

Roasting Times Chart – Allrecipes.com

Weight (in lbs.)	Regular Method	High Heat Method
2.5 to 3	1 hour 15 minutes	1 hour
3 to 3.5	1 hour 25 minutes	1 hour 10 minutes
3.5 to 4	1 hour 35 minutes	1 hour 20 minutes
4 to 4.5	1 hour 45 minutes	1 hour 30 minutes
4.5 to 5	1 hour 55 minutes	1 hour 40 minutes
5 to 5.5	2 hours 5 minutes	1 hour 50 minutes
5.5 to 6	2 hours 15 minutes	2 hours
6 to 6.5	2 hours 25 minutes	2 hours 10 minutes
6.5 to 7	2 hours 35 minutes	2 hours 20 minutes
7 to 7.5	2 hours 45 minutes	2 hours 30 minutes

NOTE: These times are for unstuffed birds. Add 15 minutes to the total cooking time if you’re roasting a stuffed chicken. And as with the chicken itself, make sure the stuffing reaches a temperature of at least 165 degrees F (74 degrees C).