Gwyneth Paltrow's Roast Chicken

I'll admit it--I love Gwyneth Paltrow. I know I'm in the minority--most people find her annoying and haughty, but I think she's beautiful, interesting, well-spoken, poised, and wonderful. I can't help it.

She has a blog called GOOP and even though a lot of people call it POOP, I love her blog too. She discusses fashion, traveling, cooking, shopping, and I guess whatever else suits her fancy. A few weeks ago she posted a video of herself cooking what she called a "quick, homemade dinner," roast chicken, fingerling potatoes, and a salad.

I watched the video and wanted to try her recipe for roast chicken--she takes the back and thigh bones out and steams/roasts the chicken in the oven with aluminum foil covering the chicken for the first half of the cooking time. Immediately, it seemed, everyone on the internet did a collective eye roll, taking issue with the fact that she called roast chicken "fast food."

Well, I tried the recipe, and I know I'm a bit biased, but it was truly a good and quick way of making a whole chicken. Taking the back and thigh bones out of the chicken was a little work, but it cuts the cooking time in half. Plus, by the third time I made the chicken I had mastered it enough to be able to do it while talking with my mom on the phone, which I think shows it can't be that difficult. After you de-bone the chicken and spice it up with some lemon and herbs (I also used some red pepper flakes), you put it in a hot oven with aluminum foil over top for 20 minutes. The liquid from the lemon, I imagine, steams the chicken, cooking it quickly. Then you remove the aluminum foil for the remaining 20 minutes and let the skin crisp up and the chicken finish cooking.

I've made the chicken three times now, and each time I've been impressed with the quickness, ease, and deliciousness of the chicken. It's awesome to be able to eat a scrumptious whole roasted chicken after only 40 minutes of cooking time. To the critics that scoff at her saying it's her version of fast food, scoff away, but I think she demonstrated an economical, healthy, quick, and easy way to feed one's family.

Here's a link to her video and recipe: http://goop.com/newsletter/44/en/