So last week when I went to the store, they had whole chickens buy one get TWO free! I decided not to wonder “why on earth are they tryin’ to get rid of these birds so fast…?” and instead thought “what a fantastic deal! I’ll take three!” Save that money, ya know.

So usually when I do this, I make the whole chicken in the crock-pot.  It’s easy and I can just do it in the morning and come home to a tender, fully cooked chicken! However, on the day that I actually wanted to make the chicken, morning Meaghan did not remember to do the crock-pot part at all…mornings are hard.  But I got home relatively early that day, so I decided to just try my hand at roasting it in the oven!  I figured my cast iron would work perfectly for this…which then made me realize that I could probably also just cook potatoes in there too…YAS.

So I preheated my oven 425, seasoned the entire chicken with salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, and Italian seasoning and gave it a good spray with coconut oil.  I diced up one onion into quarters and placed those chunks around the chicken.  I let that cook for 40 minutes while I laid on the couch and watched Shameless…GREAT use of time.

When there was about 5 minutes left, I peeled myself off the couch and diced up 4 red potatoes.  I coated them in olive oil, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, and Italian seasonings.  Once the timer went off for the chicken, I pulled it out and dumped the potatoes in all around the chicken.  I made sure to spread it as evenly as I could.

Then I turned the oven down to 375 degrees and let it bake for 40 more minutes while I melted into the couch again.  I happened to have organic, steam-in-the-bag green beans in my freezer, so I threw those into the microwave when the chicken had about 5 minutes left to cook.  Once the chicken was done, I gave it like 2 seconds to cool (I don’t advise this, but it looked SO good) and cut into it.  It was perfectly cooked! This chicken was 3 lbs, but the rule is generally 20 minutes per pound of chicken plus 15 minutes.  I decided to go the route of cooking it really hot at first to crisp up the skin and then cooking it at a little lower temp for the rest of the time.  It cut off that extra 15 minutes and the skin was SO GOOD.

I fully plan on making this recipe for the next 2 weeks until all my chickens are gone! haha

Recipe

For the chicken:

• 1 whole chicken
• 1 tbs salt
• 1 tbs pepper
• 1 tbs poultry seasoning
• 1 tbs Italian seasoning
• one onion
• Spray oil
  

  For the potatoes:

• 4 red potatoes (medium sized)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tbs Italian seasoning
• 2 tbs olive oil

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Evenly coat the entire chicken in salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, and Italian seasoning.  Once it’s coated, spray all over with coconut oil.

Chop one onion into large chunks and sprinkle around the chicken.  Spray those with coconut oil too.

Bake for 40 minutes.

Dice your 4 potatoes into bite-sized pieces.  Place in a bowl and toss with olive oil, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, and Italian seasonings.

Once the chicken has baked for 40 minutes, take it out and add in the potatoes.  Change the oven temp to 375 degrees and bake the chicken and potatoes for 40 more minutes.  Take it out halfway through to stir the potatoes a little…they’ll roast more evenly that way.

Once the chicken is done, take it out to cool (do better than me! You can do it!) for about 5 minutes…then dig in!!  Serve with your choice of vegetables.