Easy, Awesome Roast Chicken

     Forget Mark Bittman.  I've made his roast chicken with dry, tasteless results.  That was 8 years ago.  I swore off of roasting chickens after that; I decided that the grocery store had perfectly delicious rotisserie chickens.  Easy. 

     But....now I need a chicken carcass on a regular basis so that I can make low-sodium, low-fat chicken broth.  Rotisserie chickens from the grocery store are $6...can I roast a chicken at home for under $6? 

     As it turns out, no, even though this particular recipe only needs two ingredients, chicken and lemons. (Salt and pepper aren't counted as they are pantry staples.)  I spent about $8 on this recipe. 

     BUT.  This is the (second) BEST roast chicken EVER.  (The best roast chicken I've had was made by my chef brother-in-law. Heaven.) 

     This is undoubtedly the EASIEST roast chicken ever.  

     The meat on this chicken is so tender and moist.  Even the breast meat.  The flavor is out of this world.  Uber chicken.  A hint of lemon.  Salt.  Pepper.  Altogether, fabulous.  This ranks as one of my favorite dishes this year. 

     Will I go back to store-bought rotisserie chicken?  Sure, if I don't have time.  Will I make this roast chicken again?  Most definitely--as much as I can.

(I carved out a leg/thigh piece before I took a picture of the whole chicken.  Oops!)

     No nutrition info on this one as it varies so widely, depending on the part of the chicken you're eating.  It's relatively healthy, if you use a roasting pan with a raised rack (you can kind of see it in the picture above).   Have a bit of the crispy skin (just a bit!) so you can savor the loveliness of it all.  Then exercise excellent self-control and strip the rest of the skin (and fat) from the chicken.  Your arteries will thank you.

    The recipe is at Cheap, Healthy, Good; an excellent blog for healthy, cheap eats.  Enjoy!