Shhh, don’t tell anyone but I just found out the answer to a question that has been plaguing me for a long time. Do roosters and chickens “do it” in order for the chicken to lay an egg? I vaguely recall images from watching Looney Tunes as a child and seeing the cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn strut his stuff around the hen-house. All the little hens would swoon as he paid them a visit, oozing that Southern good ol boy charm.  

At the time, I was far too young to think much of his rendez vous’s with the female flock however, as the years went by I felt far too old not to know the answer.  

So I did a little research and it ends up that a hen does not need her man (or rooster in this case)  to lay an egg. She can lay her eggs just fine, (thank you very much) without the help of Mr Foghorn Leghorn or any of his “cocky” little friends. However if she wants to lay a fertilized egg and have little chickadees, then she needs to have his cock a doodle doo pay her a little visit.  

Why I am even bringing this up is because I am roasting a whole chicken for dinner and that nagging question reared it ugly little head (no pun intended).  

Why is it that when it comes to roasting a whole bird, I lose all mental capacity? I cursed myself for neglecting to buy one of those instant-read meat thermometers as this little bird did not come with a “pop up” thermometer wedged in its body. I ran over to my computer and googled, “how long to roast a chicken”. Well after reviewing ridiculous amounts of conflicting advice. I ended up selecting two recipes and averaged out their temperature and time and settled on 400F for 90 minutes.   

Instead of putting potatoes and carrots  in the roasting pan along with the chicken, I simply chopped up a cauliflower (low carb!), tossed the veggies with some lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper and threw them in with the chicken about 4o minutes before the chicken was done.  

The chicken,simply seasoned with salt, pepper, lemon and garlic came out juicy and delicious. The roasted cauliflower was absolutely heavenly as it absorbed a lot of the chicken drippings and succulent flavorful fat.  

I ended up carving all the meat off the bones and made chicken soup with the leftovers. I threw the leftover bones in a 2 qt pot, covered the carcass with cold water, threw in a 1/2 onion, 1 carrot, 2 stalks of celery and about a 3/4 teaspoon of salt to make a delicious, nutritious and low carb soup. Foghorn Leghorn would have been proud.  

Chow for now!