Roasted Chicken & Shallots with Herbs de Provence

This picture is from a site called JLG designs (http://jlgdesigns.net/index.html). They have beautiful art for sale, including lots of great roosters and such. I particularly like this one and it is perfect for my post.

First of all, the quest to stay out of big box stores is going very well. I'm really down to the few things on rare occasions - milk is one I seem to still be doing, for example. I really like to get milk at Fresh & Easy, but it is quite a drive from here, so in the interest of saving gas (unless I've already got the trip there planned) I am still buying that at Von's or Ralph's. Other than that I've been shopping Maxi Foods (Hispanic), 99 Ranch Market (Asian), and Trader Joe's for almost everything for several weeks now.

Last week at 99 Ranch I got almost 20 lbs of shallots for forty-nine cents a pound, fresh baby bok choy for forty-nine cents a pound, chinese eggplant for thirty-nine cents a pound. At Maxi Foods I got tomatoes for twenty cents a pound and onions for - if you can believe it - ten cents a pound. The tomatoes at Ralph's and Von's are $1.50 a pound - at the height of harvest season - the nerve - and the onions are $1 a pound. Ridiculous!

Any way - I've decided to be like the missionaries who went to Hawaii - they put on their long underwear on the first of October. They did this because that was what they did on the first of October on the East Coast, from whence they came. They did not care that it was a beautiful and balmy 80 degrees in Hawaii in October. October 1 meant long underwear and that was that.

And so it is for me. It is OCTOBER for crying out loud! My biological clock is demanding, no screaming, for Fall weather and Fall food. Therefore, I have decided to ignore the fact that it was 103 degrees here yesterday and cook what we are all craving. This means I have to be creative, because air conditioning costs the earth.

Which is why I made Roasted Chicken & shallots Herbs de Provence even though it was over 100 degrees. I used a free range from Trader Joe's - no money left for AC after that anyway, but the flavor is worth it and I don't feel bad about eating a chicken raised in a cage where it can't even turn around.

To pull off this feat I used the gas bbq outside. I put the chicken and about three pounds of shallots - trimmed and rinsed, but still in their peels, like you would roast garlic, in a disposable aluminum roasting pan. I tossed the shallots with olive oil, coated the chicken very lightly with same, sprinkled everything with sea salt and freshly ground pepper and gave the chicken a coating of herbs de provence - lovely stuff.

I just like to say the name, but the flavor is truly wonderful on a roasted bird. It is a mix thyme, marjoram, bay leaf and lavender and I am lucky enough to have a constant stream of friends and relatives who go to France, so every bit I've ever used has actually come from there. Alan just brought me a new jar last week which he actually went into a real French grocery store to buy, just like a French housewife. Well, sort of, you get the idea.

So I turned all four burners on the bbq to get the heat up really high and popped the chicken and shallots into the direct middle, turning off the two burners in the middle. This way the chicken roasted with high indirect heat (lid down the whole time) without burning on the bottom. I let it go for about an hour and a half, which is just right for a four-five pound chicken at 400 degrees.

Half way into the cooking time for the chicken I shredded a head of red cabbage (just thin slices) and tossed it into a wide frying pan with some olive oil and salt and pepper. This went onto the bbq's side burner at a medium heat for about 45 minutes, stirring frequently. The trick is to get about a third of it to carmelize. Wonderful stuff to serve with anything roasted.

A quick leafy green salad with olive oil and sherry vinegar and we had a feast. To eat the shallots you just push on them with a fork and the roasted insides ooze out - delicious with one bite of shallot to one bite of juicy chicken. And it didn't heat up the kitchen, and since it is getting dark sooner, it felt like Fall, and I was glad I stuck to my guns and made cold-weather food.