Chicken w/Squash and Salsa

Serves 3-4

Ingredients

3lb Whole Chicken

2T. Bacon Fat (you can also use coconut oil, ghee, or olive oil)

1 Small Butternut Squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1" cubes

14-16oz Fire-Roasted Salsa (use your favorite salsa)

Sea Salt and Pepper, to taste

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Heat a dutch oven (you can also use a crock pot, it will just increase the cooking time).
3. Add bacon fat (or other fat).
4. Season chicken (I used a 3lb pastured chicken from Rehoboth Ranch) with sea salt and pepper and transfer to pot, breast-side down. While chicken is browning on one side, peel, seed, and chop the squash into 1" cubes.
5. Flip chicken, add butternut squash to pot, and top everything with a 16oz container of salsa (I used a fire-roasted salsa from a local Tex-Mex restaurant). Put a lid on the pot and transfer to preheated oven. Cook for about 1 hour or until chicken is cooked through.*

This meal was created using what I had on-hand. Feel free to use acorn or delicata squash (don't worry about peeling them, as their skin is thin enough to eat) in place of the butternut. You might also add a few handfuls of spinach, or a bunch of chard or kale, to add some green to this meal. Prep time for this took about 7 minutes from fridge to oven and cooked while we did our garage workout, about 1 hour. 

*A larger chicken will take longer to cook.