hack. cough. wheeze. coughcough.

Sorry for the hiatus everyone. Another cold has descended upon me with the wrath of Jade Goody meets Shilpa Shetty. I think I hacked up part of my lung last night. Whenever I get ill all I want to do is curl up with some chicken soup. So I made some chicken soup. I even went so far as to make the stock from scratch, ya know, since I had the leftovers from a roast chicken. I've recently discovered that making a roast chicken is not nearly as big a deal as I thought it was and it delights me to no end to know that all I have to do is shove a lemon, some garlic and an onion up its arse and it will taste lovely. I know that roast chicken will be one of those dishes that I will endlessly try to perfect but for right now I think I'm doing ok:

Roast Chicken a la Amanda (and thousands of others, I'm sure):

-1.5 kg organic (really, don't waste your time with that battery reared shite) chicken, giblets removed (I got mine from Waitrose for about £8)
-handful of organic shallots
-half a bulb of organic garlic, slashed in half again
-1 organic onion, trimmed and peeled, cut in half
-1 organic, unwaxed lemon, cut in half
-sprigs of fresh thyme, divided
-sprigs of fresh rosemary, divided
-good quality EVOO or butter
-ground white pepper and Maldon flaky sea salt

Preheat your oven per instructions on bird.
Meanwhile, first season the inside of your bird.
Then stuff shallots, garlic, half the lemon, onion and most of the herbs up its arse.
Squeeze the other half of the lemon over the body, smear with olive oil or butter and rub in the salt, pepper and remaining herbs (chopped).
Baste every 1/2 hour til your bird is done, per instructions on bird.
After removing, cover with foil and let rest for 10 minutes or so. Voila!

Make sure you let the carcass cool and then scavenge off all the bits of meat and bones so you can make your very own stock. You may as well since the bird cost £8 and all.

Right. Back to the Strepsils and the Lemsip.