Easy weeknight dinners - roast chicken with peas and mashed carrots

When I was little I used to hate leftovers. That's one of the reasons I learned to cook, so I could eat what I want when I want and nobody could force me to eat leftovers. Funny how your opinions change over time.
Now I am searching for recipes which produce leftovers so that I do not have to ask myself everyday what to cook. Although I love cooking, weeknight cooking is a bore. You usually are so hungry when you get home that you just want something fast and delicious which results in you eating some sandwiches every day for a week.
This is intended to be the first post from a "easy weeknight dinners" series, so stay tuned.

Roast chicken ... this is a classic and everybody should have a good roast chicken recipe. A roast chicken provides enough food for 4 people and some leftovers for 2. Disclaimer: I always make quesadillas out of leftover chicken, you should do that too. If you only try one roast chicken recipe in your life, this should be it as it is very easy and the result is delicious. The secret to good chicken is salting the chicken early, letting it dry in the fridge over night and then roasting it at high temperature.

Peas and mashed carrots ... at first I thought this will be too sweet, but as I had some stomach problems and I had to eat healthy I gave it a shot and surprisingly it turned out delicious. To be honest, don't expect the carrots to be extraordinary on their own, they are only boiled carrots but they go very well with the peas and the chicken.
Fun fact about the peas: I used to make peas and wonder why they don't taste right like my grandma used to do them. Then I visited my grandma and found out the secret: for delicious peas you have to add flour at the end(it's true, even Jamie Oliver does this, maybe he also learned it from his grandma).

Duration: 1 hour (+10 minutes to prepare the chicken one day before)
Servings: 4-6
Difficulty: easy

Roast chicken
Ingredients:

• 1 1,5 kg chicken, washed and patted dry
• 2½ teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons black pepper
• Small bunch mixed herbs, such as rosemary, thyme and sage

Method:

• Season the chicken inside and out with salt and pepper. 
• Refrigerate the chicken, uncovered, overnight.
• Heat oven to 225 degrees. 
• Place chicken breast-side up in a roasting pan or large ovenproof skillet(it should be a deep dish as the fat will start jumping around and will make a mess out of you oven if the dish is not deep enough). 
• Stuff cavity with herbs and tie the legs together with kitchen twine. (If you don't have twine, leave the legs as they are.)
• Roast 50 minutes, basting the chicken with pan juices from time to time. Do not cover the pan with a lid.
• After 50 minutes, turn the chicken and put it back to the skillet and continue roasting until chicken's juices run clear when skin is pierced with a knife, 5 to 10 minutes longer. 
• Let stand 10 minutes before carving.

Peas
Ingredients:

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 500 g peas
• 1 Tbsp flour
• salt and pepper
• some sour cream to serve

Method:

• Put some oil in a large pan and fry the onion until translucent.
• Add the peas and cook together with the onions for about 15 minutes.
• Add some water and cook for further 5 minutes, or until the water has evaporated and you have a creamy consistency.
• Add salt, pepper and the flour and mix well.
• Taste and adjust seasoning.
• When serving add 1 tsp of sour cream to each portion of peas and mix well.

Mashed carrots
Ingredients:

• 600 g carrots, peeled and cut into smaller pieces
• 2 Tbsp butter
• juice from 1/2 lemon
• salt and pepper

Method:

• Boil the carrots in water until they are soft enough to mash them
• Drain the water, put the butter over them, some salt and pepper and half of the lemon juice
• Mash them with a fork or the special mash instrument which I don't know how it is called
• Taste and adjust seasoning, putting more salt, pepper or lemon juice if needed