Chicken Challenge: First Meal--Roasted Chicken

The first meal I made in the Whole Chicken Challenge was a roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy and asparagus.  All told, I spent under $10, and we had lots of leftovers, which I plan to use to make Green-Chile Chicken Enchiladas.  This meal would have easily fed 4 people (although I would've bought 2 bundles of asparagus if I had been expecting 2 more people).

Here is the cost breakdown for the whole meal:

One whole chicken: $5.25
Asparagus: $2.10
Potatoes (3 big bakers): $0.96
One can chicken broth: $0.98 (I had it on hand, actually)
Total: $9.29   Price per serving: $2.32

Here is the recipe for the chicken.  I will post the sides separately.

Roasted Chicken 

Ingredients:
One whole chicken
Salt
Pepper
1 Tbsp. soft butter

1.  Take the chicken out of the packaging and pull out the stuff they put inside the cavity.  You will likely find a heart, a gizzard, a neck and a liver.  I'm strange (apparently), so I cook and eat the heart and gizzard.  I throw away the liver, but save the neck for making chicken stock, which we will do tomorrow.  Rinse with cool water and pat dry with paper towels.
2.  Using a SHARP knife or kitchen shears, cut out the backbone of the chicken.  Just cut through the ribs along either side of the backbone.  It gets a little tricky at the end where the wishbone is located.  Had I planned ahead, I could've posted photos, so I will direct you to the tons of videos on YouTube of chickens being cut apart.  Save the backbone for stock.
3.  Take off the wings with your knife or scissors, and set them aside for stock.  You should now have a chicken breast with legs on it, essentially.
4.  Using your fingers, gently separate the skin from the breast.  Put some salt under there and rub it around for even coverage.  Then salt and pepper the outside of the chicken (both sides).  Rub the tablespoon of butter over the breast and thighs/drumsticks.
5.  Place chicken in a roasting pan breast-side up.  I use a cast-iron grill pan, but any oven-safe pan or dish will work.  Roast in a 400-degree oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the size of your chicken.  Mine was pretty big, so it roasted for almost an hour.  Let it rest on a plate or cutting board for at least 10 minutes before carving.

"But Caitlin, how do I know when my chicken is done?"  The Government says that your chicken is cooked when the thighs reach 180 degrees and the breast 170 degrees.  In my experience, that is too high.  The thigh meat will be fine, but the rest will be really dry.  I say go about 10 degrees less; any pathogens will be killed at around 150, but if you're really paranoid or in a "sensitive group" (you know who you are), take it to 180.  The choice is yours.  Of course, if you don't have a meat thermometer, you're just going to have to take it on faith that it's done when the juices run clear.  I'm pretty cavalier about the whole thing--I have several thermometers, but I never use them for chicken.

If you've never roasted a chicken before, you should try it--even if you are a chicken nugget kinda person.  My boyfriend, who doesn't like chicken with bones, told me that the chicken was "awesome."  He normally doesn't like chicken skin either, and he proclaimed that to be delicious as well (because it was crispy and salty!).  I even got him to try a bite of chicken heart, which he also said wasn't bad.  "It just tastes like dark meat," he said.