What happens when you put two MMoM favorites together? A hit, of course! When preparing dinner for 22 people, I give anyone permission to refer to a stand-by recipe. I prepared four 5 pound chickens by stuffing them with lemons, garlic and thyme, slathering them with butter (don’t forget to get under the breast meat skin) and roasting them for an hour and a half at 425 degrees. They came out perfectly crispy and moist. I paired the chickens with my trusty tapenade recipe that I have been reposting basically every week this summer (believe me, you’ll never get tired of it).

 

I saw the combination of roast chickens and tapenade on one of my new favorite cooking shows, Alex’s Day Off on the Food Network. On this particular show, she basically smeared butter all over an upside down halved chicken and then lathered it in tapenade. I was worried that this presentation wouldn’t look too presentable and that not all my guests were as crazy about olives and anchovies as I am. So, I roasted the chickens and left the tapenade on the side. The combination was pretty irresistable and turned out to be a great choice for the blogiversary party!