Dinner Disappointment

Last night, Debra and I decided to cook a reasonably nice dinner. We had put a frozen whole chicken in the fridge a few days ago to thaw, and so we wanted to roast it with some potatoes and carrots for a nice dinner. Since she's a little squeamish about this for some reason, I pulled out the innards and removed the kidneys, then washed the whole thing inside and out with cold water. I coated the chicken inside and out with olive oil and a french herb rub. Debra cut up some onions and garlic, and we stuffed those inside the chicken to give it some more flavor. We then added chopped potatoes and baby carrots, drizzled those with olive oil and seasoned them with the same herb mixture. This all went into a roasting pan with a grating on the bottom. Then I covered it with aluminum foil, and put it in the oven at 350 degrees (F) at about 4:30.

It was a 5 pound chicken, and needed about 1.5-2 hours to cook all the way. The house smelled amazing, and since neither of us had eaten lunch, we were both salivating. At about 6:20, Debra had a bad feeling. She looked up online how long it takes a chicken to thaw and how long the meat keeps in the refrigerator after thawing. As it turns out, a whole chicken takes about 5 hours per pound to thaw in the fridge, and keeps for at most 2 days after being thawed. Thinking it would have taken much longer to thaw, Debra had placed the chicken in the fridge on Monday, and it was now Saturday. Everything we read suggested that after 2-3 days, the risk for food poisoning increased dramatically. It had been about 4-5 days.

So we couldn't eat the chicken we had worked so hard to make and that smelled so good. We took it out and threw it away, along with the vegetables that had come into contact with it. Thank goodness for Little Ceaesar's $5.00 hot pizzas. Debra picked one of those up, and we ate pizza along with our roasted potatoes and carrots.

Dinner fail.