Roast Chicken Provençale

So, about a month or so ago I sprained my ankle. I was saving my dog from drowning (not just making that up to sound cool), and twisted my ankle on a rock on the riverbed. As we were walking back to the car, sodden and freezing, I hit a tree root at a funny angle and SNAP. I know enough about sports medicine to know that hearing a snap isn't a good thing, but I'm an idiot when it comes to my own health sometimes. So I hobbled a mile back to the car, loaded the dog up, drove home, bathed the dog, rinsed myself off, then cooked dinner (pizza). And 3 hours later, I was sobbing hysterically with pain. So, off to the ER we went and x-rays, a set of crutches and a prescription for vicodin later, I was sent home with a diagnosis of "moderate sprain". Rather than trying to hazard the stairs on crutches for the first time ever at 3am after a dose of vicodin, I spent the night on the pull-out sleeper.

Now, our oven has always squeaked, whistled and squawked when heating up and cooling off. It's 17 years old, after all. The inspector said it was a loose seal somewhere in the oven. Ok, fine.

Except the night I spent on the pull-out, I realized it was squeaking and whistling at 3am, 4am, 5am. And, loose seal or not, that's not normal.

So we got a new oven. It's a KitchenAid wall oven, 30" wide, convection, in black. It has all sorts of neat functions that I haven't tried out yet. But tonight I decided to "christen" it by roasting a chicken with veggies. Using convection, it halved the cook time outlined below (convection directions at the asterisk). And, oh, so delicious.

Roast Chicken Provençale

2 tbsp Herbes de Provance
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
3 cloves garlic
1 7lb roasting chicken
1 small onion, quartered

1 small bag baby carrots
1 bunch celery, chopped
1 medium shallot, chopped
2 russet potatoes, chopped
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp butter, divided

2/3 cup chicken broth
1/3 cup white wine
1 tbsp butter

Combine the first 5 ingredients into a paste. Remove neck and giblets from chicken (if necessary). Starting at the neck, loosen skin from the chicken. Rub seasoning mixture under skin. Place onion in body cavity. Truss chicken and place on roasting rack and place rack in pan.

Preheat* oven to 400. Add vegetables to bottom of the roasting pan. Add divided butter. Once oven is preheated, place chicken in oven. Cook for 1 hour 30 minutes or until a thermometer stuck in the breast reads 180.

Remove rack from pan, spoon veggies out. Heat pan over medium heat, add wine, broth and butter. Stir with a whisk until browned bits are lifted off bottom of the pan and is well combined. Pour into a fat separator and let settle.

Meanwhile, carve chicken and plate, add veggies to plate. Pour broth over chicken and veggies. Serve immediately.

* For convection, heat oven to 350 and cook 1 hour or until a thermometer reads 180.