Baked chicken with carrots and onions for Easter Dinner

     Hello! Hope your all having a wonderful and blessed Easter Sunday.  I have to say, I had a great time, my girls and I were invited to a friends house for egg hunting, Easter Dinner and some swimming.  However as the day progressed we became so engulfed in conversation with her family, who as it turns out are Italian Americans from Brooklyn. that the idea of swimming was inconceivable.  Our conversations consisted of music, food, Italian food, coffees, Italy, Brooklyn and who's camera had what features.  Turns out my friends' aunt Sadie lived in Italy for some years and goes back every year, she's elderly and has such a wonderful, fun way of telling a story.  At some point it seemed as though it was just me and aunt Sadie talking, in our own little world.  Oh my! I called her aunt Sadie like she's my aunt, well maybe she is as just before we left she gave me a big hug and my friend said "welcome to the family" awe....that was sweet.  I think I'm invited for 4th of July and Thanksgiving... As the conversations went on,  thoughts of my own family came to mind, childhood thoughts of Coney Island and Rockaway beach it was touching in a sense.  Also, there was the promise that I may get the families' secret "gravy" recipe, for those of you who are not familiar with how secret an authentic Italian "gravy" recipe is, I have to tell you, you either have to be a close family member or a very close friend if there is no family left to get it (fingers crossed).  Oh and just in case your wondering what I mean by "gravy" well, that's how some Italians refer to their homemade tomato sauce.

     Of course I couldn't show up empty handed so I chose to prepare baked chicken with carrots and onions.  It was refreshing to know, everyone enjoyed the chicken and complimented me on it, they even had "seconds" which was an even greater compliment.  I was just glad they were pleased because isn't that what we want when serving our food? To please everyone at the table?  Besides the chicken, the table was covered with plates filled with potato salad, sweet potato casserole, ham and a pasta called, get this "death by garlic", I loved it, it definitely lived up to it's name and was so good I think I'll get the recipe and post on here soon.  Then of course, there was dessert consisting of flan, upside down pineapple cake, chocolate cake, coconut cake in the form of a bunny, blueberry pie and ....vanilla cake.
Wow!  By the time we were done as you may imagine, we were stuffed, I had to take the rest of my dessert home.  Below I give you the recipe for baked chicken with carrots and onions along with some photo's .  Thank you for reading and enjoy!

Baked Chicken with Carrots and Onions

2 whole chickens

1 tablespoon of garlic fresh or powdered

1 tablespoon of pepper

1 tablespoon of salt or to taste

1 packet of sazon with culantro and achiote (in ethnic section)

4 large carrots quartered

1large onion large dice

1 large roasting pan

Clean chickens, a simple rinse is fine, check for giblets inside cavities.  You can mix the condiments listed above, then rub them on the chickens, set that aside and clean your carrots, quarter then and give the onion a large dice.  Put chickens in the pan, place it into a 350 degree oven, about forty minutes later, place the carrots and onions into pan, separate them and let them cook with the chicken the rest of the way, I'd say the cooking time is about two and a half hours, but check the chicken with a thermometer after two hours, the temperature should be 180 for a well done chicken.  Now you can cook these a golden brown, but I sometimes like to get that rustic, charred look on them.  The chicken will come out tender and juicy, let it rest for twenty minutes before cutting, then cut it into pieces as in the photo below and spread the leftover juices over the top, a guaranteed hit, I promise you, enjoy!!