Happy New Year, everyone. Whatever you did to celebrate - whether that’s partying hard or falling asleep at 7:30pm with half a mince pie wedged in your jaw - I hope it was all you wanted it to be. I went to a little pantomime party with the cast and crew, but Paul and I left just after midnight and wound our way home along the meandering roads of West Yorkshire to South West Lancashire.
On the morning of the 2nd January I woke up at 1am and couldn’t get back to sleep, so by 5am, after four hours of tossing and turning furiously, I decided to drive back to the cottage I’m renting for the panto run and try to get back in bed there for a few hours.
As I arrived, I remembered I had two medium chickens in the fridge that I needed to roast, and I seriously couldn’t be arsed waiting up with them, probing their legs at regular intervals. Instead, I shoved them straight from the fridge into a roasting dish, threw some oil and salt at them, shoved half a head of garlic up each of their back rear ends, and flung them in the cold oven. I turned it on to 140C fan, and left them for 2 hours and 30 minutes (total time from closing the door and switching the oven on). I set my alarm, but it was the scent of the golden skin creeping its way up the stairs that woke me from a heavy, much-needed, slumber. They were perfectly roasted, with golden skin and the meat falling tenderly off the bone.
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