Smitten Kitchen Chicken

My very good friend since 3rd grade, C and I always do a Christmas lunch. It's usually 3 hours long - longer if we have to pop into a nearby store. This year it was C's idea to meet at the Phoenix Art Museum and see the exhibit on 1920's fashion - Modern Spirit.

Dresses, sequins, feathers, beading, tiny t-strap shoes, a little flapper, a lot of low waists, and everything feminine. We oooooed and aaaaaahhed over it all and each forced ourselves to pick the one dress we would have worn if we had lived in the 20s. Ah - the horror of only picking one . . . BUT we both succeeded and left happy with our choices.

I am digressing here.

The point to all this is after the dresses and after our 2+ hour lunch, C gave me my Christmas gift (wrapped in darling paper of course). It was the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman. Score! Have you heard of it? Click here to go to Deb's website. Deb is hilarious and started cooking in her tiny 2x4 NYC apartment. She then started the blog, Smitten Kitchen and to make a long story short had to quit her day job to keep the blog alive! I highly recommend her. Her blog. Her cookbook. Her recipes.

Here's the book C gave me:

Last night I tried to make Flat Roasted Chicken:

The part of the recipe that was the trickiest was cutting out the backbone of the chicken. I totally felt like a surgeon with shears! Kinda fun and kinda creepy.

Mine came out looking like this. I was pleased. The flavor was awesome and it was pretty easy. I'll try it again to see if I can crisp it up a bit more - like the Colonol does! Overall, a great chicken!

Thanks C for the book, the 3 hours of fun at the Museum and everything in between. XOXO