Roasted Chicken - The World's Easiest Recipe!

Yes, you heard me correctly.  Roasted chicken is the easiest thing to cook!

You will need:
1 whole chicken
salt
pepper
butter
roasting pan with lid (or aluminum foil)
meat thermometer

First Things First:
*Take your raw chicken and unwrap it.  Make sure it doesn't have the neck or giblets inside the body cavity.  I like to rinse my chicken before I cook it.  I don't know if it makes a difference or not, but I do.
*Put the chicken in the roasting pan breast side down (the wings should be poking up).
*Slather that bad bird in butter!  I mean scoop out about a 1/4 cup of softened butter onto your hands and rub the bird down!  If you have any big chunks left, put them in the body cavity.
*Salt and Pepper according to your tastes.  Remember, you can always add more when you are eating!  Better to make a bland bird that requires a bit extra after cooking than to make a bird so salty no one can eat!
*Put the pan in the oven on 375*.  Don't cover it yet!  Cooking time when making a roasted bird is really a hard thing to put in a recipe.  It all depends on the size of your bird.  This is where the meat thermometer comes in!  Approximately 20 minutes per pound is what the internet tells me the cooking time should be (website link below).  After about 3/4 of the cooking time has passed, check the temperature with the meat thermometer.  Remember, you need to poke the thermometer into deep meat to get the correct temperature.  Once your bird has hit about 155*-160* cover it for the remaining cook time.  Your bird is done when it's internal temperature is at 180*.
*Take it out and enjoy!

A six pound bird with two side dishes is enough to feed my family for one meal with no leftovers (3 adults and 3 children).  Leftover chicken is a wonderful thing to have, so if you are wondering about a larger bird vs a smaller bird, go with the larger one!

Cooking with chicken info link 
The cooking time chart is down the page a bit.