Sunday Night Dinners

My husband and I have always been fond of a big, lovely Sunday night dinner. We love to entertain, and have found that family and friends love to be fed on a Sunday afternoon. They come over, have cocktails, great conversations and eat till we can eat no more!

This Sunday we had our friends Josh and Sarah over for a roast chicken dinner. Now, Sarah is a great cook, but she also has a fabulous figure and therefore watches every ounce of butter that passes through her lips. I am not saying that I am an oaf, but on Sundays I do not care about my butter intake. So, in honor of our dear friends we chose to make Julia Child's Roasted Chicken, Scalloped Potatoes and green beans. No one left hungry!

You can always tell a great restaurant by the quality of their Roast Chicken. Such a seemingly simple dish, it takes time, care and careful monitoring to really get an excellent crispy skin, juicy flesh and a wonderful chickeny flavor.

I tend to flavor my bird with salt, freshly ground pepper and butter, putting the bird in at a high heat of 425 and turning the bird every 5 minutes for 15 minutes. I also baste at every turn. After the 15 minutes, I leave the bird on one side and turn down the temperature to 350. After basting every ten minutes for the first half hour, I turn the bird to its other side for another thirty minutes. I repeat the basting every ten minutes and finish the bird on its back, breast side up with a few final bastings.


While a roasted chicken is a humble dish, few dishes really give you such a sense of family and home as a fresh from the oven bird. Think back to the old Norman Rockwell painting of Thanksgiving or Sunday dinners and you always picture a large roasted fowl on a platter with the family ohhing and ahhing over the spectacle. It is a sight to behold. I am very fond of the simplicity of the chicken, but from a budgeting point of view, it is an easy dish to fit into the budget for a family. Even with friends, we always have left overs!

From the roasted bird, I can get two chicken sandwiches, and a pot pie or chicken and dumplings. Yes, it sounds like a lot, but when you add various other elements to it, it can be done. Also, I take the carcass of the bird and boil it to make stock for the pot pie or dumplings and keep the extra stock for the weeks worth of soups or to add to my dog's supper. This easy and simple dish can supplement your weeknights dinners and create a budget stretcher.

One word as far as quality, try to buy the best bird you can. I am such a thrifty shopper and coupon nut that I tend to go toward the cheapest birds I can find. But, I recently tried a Draper Valley Chicken which is grown here in the Pacific Northwest. The flavor of the bird is significantly different and just tastes magnificant. I would definately pay the extra little bit to get that wonderful flavor. My advice? Look for a sale, buy a few and freeze them!