Roasted Chicken with Thyme Gravy, sort of…

Tonight’s dinner was supposed to be straight out of Against All Grain: Meals Made Simple.  However, I did not plan accordingly with my run to the grocery store Monday morning. 

I realized a little too late that I did not have butternut squash, nor did I have enough carrots.  I would like to point out that the lack of carrots is because I stopped buying chips and started snacking on crunchy, raw veggies in the afternoon.  This particular week, I have been eating lots of carrots. 

In order to avoid the grocery store at 5:30 p.m., I decided I should improvise.  I asked myself, “W.W.K.D.?” In other words, “What Would Kathleen Do?”  For those who don’t know, Kathleen is my lovely mom who not only taught me how to cook, but also taught me to be brave enough to experiment in the kitchen.  So, with that in mind, I looked in the fridge to see what I had to replace the squash.  I discovered I had a bunch of Honeycrisp apples.  Since it is October, I decided to ignore the fact that Portland is having an eternal summer with the 90-degree temperature and make a fall appropriate dinner. 

So, I tied up the chicken, seasoned it with salt and pepper, and put it in the oven.   With 20 minutes left to cook the chicken, I poured the ghee, rosemary, and thyme mixture on top of the chicken and placed the chopped carrots and quartered apples into the pan.  While the chicken was cooking, I chopped some onion, garlic and celery. put it in the food processor with chicken broth, and combined it. 

Once the chicken reached the appropriate temperature (personally, I like it around 170 degrees), I removed the bird from the oven and scooped out the carrots and apples into a small bowl.  The remaining liquid was poured into the food processor with more rosemary and thyme.  I mixed it up until it was well combined and ran it through a sieve to use as my gravy.  While the gravy recipe was inspired by the gravy recipe in Danielle Walker’s book, I made a few changes to make it my own.  The taste was amazing, but it was weird eating gravy that did not have a flour base.  I think next time I will find a flour substitute to get the texture to my liking. 

The chicken was served with the roasted apples and carrots.  Nervously, I gave Chris his plate for dinner, thinking he would not enjoy the roasted apples.  However, he gobbled it down without a second thought.  We both really love the roasted apples and carrots so much we will probably make it a staple throughout the fall. 

Now I need to start working on my next recipe!  In the meantime, I will continue to eat my pumpkin spice cake.  And, yes, it is still delicious and moist three days later.

-- Kim