Farm Box Roasted Chicken

This is the first meal we cooked out of our delicious box of goodies from Garden Gate.  I'm calling it a Farm Box rather than a CSA Box because it isn't a traditional CSA - we didn't buy any shares.  Most of the food included is produced locally, supplemented with some things that are procured from farther away.

My general philosophy on roasts, soups and stews is to toss in any long-cooking vegetables on hand, season according to whim, and cook at some sort of low to medium temperature.  It has worked so far.  In the photo below, you'll see the veggies I originally intended to toss in the roast tonight.  After getting about halfway through the prep, I decided there would be way too much vegetable component for the two of us to manage, even taking a left-over lunch tomorrow into consideration.

I ended up using one leek, three carrots, a quarter of the cauliflower, a clove of elephant garlic, 4 fingerling potatoes, half a yellow onion, and a turnip.  At least, I'm pretty sure its a turnip.  Cut it all up, then mixed it all together in the roaster.  Added some olive oil and finely chopped fresh rosemary and oregano, salt, and fresh ground pepper.

I seasoned the chicken with kosher salt, pepper, and paprika, then quickly braised it on the stove top for some color and crispy flavor.  Our little chicken came from Autumn's Harvest Farm, which is about 30 miles away from us.  This farm uses a guard dog to keep animal predation low, and you know I love me some working dogs!

Put it on top of the veggies, and roast at ... um, 325-ish (I guess?) until done.

After putting the roast in, I noticed all the carrot peels and other miscellaneous vegetable detritus (vegtritus?) all over the kitchen floor, and set our roomba Catbus to eat it all up.  I love this thing, its almost as good as having a dog!

Use a meat thermometer to make sure the chicken is done, then cut the bits up, serve, and bask in the glory of an amazing meal!