Roasted Half-Chicken with Crispy Drippings Bread and Spring Vegetables

Spring is officially here. Yesterday, I noticed that there were lots of beautiful green vegetables at the Farmers Market so I went a bit crazy and got baby artichokes, asparagus, green garlic, green onions, pea shoots, potatoes, spinach and tomatoes. Afterwards, I felt a bit guilty and decided I needed to use them right away... so I dragged myself to the Mission Meat Market to get a whole chicken so I could make Roast Chicken with Spring Vegetables.


I used the NYTimes' Roasted Chicken recipe because I loved the idea of having crunchy bread full of chicken drippings. Here is the recipe with some adjustments since I only used half of the chicken:

Ingredients:
1/2 loaf of sourdough baguette, sliced at least 1/2-inch thick
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 whole chicken (brined overnight and patted dry)
1 garlic head, sliced in half horizontally
1 bay leaf
1/2 lemon
A bunch thyme sprigs
Artichokes
Asparagus
Green Garlic
Green Onion

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Arrange oven rack so that it is in center of oven. Lay bread slices in a thick, heavy-duty metal roasting pan in one layer. Drizzle liberally with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
• Rub 1 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper inside cavity of chicken. Put the garlic, bay leaf, lemon and thyme underneath the half-chicken. Rub outside of chicken with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and sprinkle all over with remaining salt and pepper. Place it breast side up on bread.
• Roast chicken until it is deeply browned and juices run clear when thigh is pricked with a knife, about 45-50 minutes. Let rest for 10 minutes before carving.
  
• Thirty minutes in to cooking, drizzle baby artichokes with olive oil, salt and pepper and put them on a separate pan and into the oven.
• While you're waiting for the chicken to rest, put the rest of the vegetables onto the pan with the artichokes and season with olive oil, salt & pepper.
  
• Serve chicken with bread from pan and the roasted vegetables.

So here is the result and my Sunday dinner...