Family Style

Whether your family is large or small, lives close by or spread out across the country, related by blood or pieced together by friendships -- everyone has someone they call their family.

And what's one of the things that we do when have a family get-together?

We eat, drink, laugh, and talk.

But if I were to lose one of those things, it would definitely not be the eating. Because as everyone who loves me knows, I love to eat.

When I am home visiting my family, my mom rarely plates our food for us. We're a cozy family and we love to eat family style.

Family style is just sitting around the dinner table and passing large dishes of food around.

There's no "Mary doesn't like raisins, so don't give her any of that" or "Jonathan needs a piece of meat with no fat on it or he won't eat it". We just take however much we choose of anything and get to talk as we do it.

And those little stipulations I mentioned may or may not be true about my family members... I'm not saying...

So before I share with you what we're eating, I think I should share a couple of pictures of who I'm eating with!

Here's the gang:

My step dad George and me

My boyfriend Luke and me

My brother Jonathan, my dog (or sister, I can't tell sometimes with all the coddling) Olli, and my Mom

My brother Jonathan, my brother Stephen, my sister Mary, and me

And now here's one of my favourite things to serve family style:

Lemon Dill Roast Chicken

1 - 4 pound roast chicken
1/4 cup dill, chopped
1 whole lemon
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon each of salt and pepper

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. Wash and pat your chicken dry before placing it in a roasting pan.

3. Cover your chicken with salt, pepper, dill, and lemon juice. Now tuck the two sides of the lemon into the inside of the chicken for extra flavour.

4. Pour water around the edge of the chicken to prevent any burning and to keep your meat moist.

5. Bake for approximately 12 - 15 minutes per pound or about 45 - 60 minutes for a four pound chicken. If you're unsure of the doneness of the chicken, don't just slice into it. Instead use a meat thermometer and make sure that your thermometer reads 165 degrees fahrenheit or 75 degrees celsius.

6. Rest your whole chicken covered in foil for about 5 - 10 minutes before cutting into it. The temperature of the meat will rise about 10 degrees fahrenheit or 5 degrees celsius during the resting period.

7. Slice into it and serve on a platter family style with your favourite sides. And since you're cooking smaller chickens, hopefully there's no argument over the legs!

Obviously the recipe doubles if you have a large family. This size of a chicken wouldn't cover my whole family for sure. Just be aware of the cooking time. It doesn't work to roast two chickens for the same amount of time as one chicken at the same weight. It takes at least 15 minutes a pound for more than one chicken.