Giving Roasted Chicken the Bird

I had great and wonderful plans for tonight's dinner.

Earlier in the week I purchased a whole chicken. The plan was to season it up and place it on top of a pan of roasting vegetables to bake. Very simple, very easy, supposedly very delicious.

And since I stayed home from work today due to joint-itis and an inability to sleep last night, I sorely needed simple and easy.

So I cut up a few veggies, threw them in a pan, de-gibleted my chicken, washed it and seasoned it well with sage and rosemary and butter. Then I put the fowl on top of the veggies and popped the whole thing in the oven, set it at 350 degrees, and went back to bed. This was at 5 p.m.

At 6:15 Hubster got back from his errands. We set the table and pulled the chicken et al out of the oven. It was brown. But when I placed it on the plate to carve it, the juices weren't clear.

It wasn't done. And neither were the veggies.

"Hmmm..." I thought.

So we put the whole thing back in the oven at 400 degrees, waited another hour and lathered, rinsed and repeated the procedure.

Now the veggies were done, but the bird was still not cooperating. The skin was brown and crispy, but the juices were still not running clear.

"What the heck???" thought I.

So I turned the whole thing upside down and put it back in the oven for an additional half hour.

By then we were past hungry. The winged creature came out with a beautiful crispy brown bottom...but it was STILL not done.

So we cut off the parts that looked to be un-raw, nuked them for good measure in the microwave, and ate them anyway.

And tomorrow we're looking into a new oven, because I'm not giving the bird to this one again.