Seven Meals From One Bird

Its delightful carcass will sustain Mr. Tucker and I through seven meals. “The heck,” you say. It’s true!

There are two tricks to stretching this into many meals:

1. Don’t put it all on the table, or you will just keep eating! Divide the meat immediately. And, after you remove the meat from the bone, put the bones and skin in water to simmer for your own chicken broth.
2. Plan ahead.

Here’s how the bird will be utilized to feed us for several days:

1. It will get served first with a simple set of side dishes (slaw, parslied potatoes, and beans)
2. Part of it will be used in an “Asian” stir fry (if you can call anything this Texan cooks “Asian”).
3. A portion of it will go into chicken enchiladas.
4. Some of it will get simmered in a pasta sauce.
5. A large chef’s salad will get part of this chicken.
6. There will be chicken salad sandwiches.
7. The remainder will wind up in a chicken soup.

Some of you may not think that’s enough meat at a meal, but even if you don’t make seven meals out of it, you can plan ahead to make several. Although we are both carnivores, neither of us feel it’s essential to eat a whole bird at one sitting. I’ve been practicing making meals that don’t necessarily “feature” the meat, because we both need to be eating more vegetables.

I’ve never been one to bother with roasting a chicken before — it always seemed like too much trouble. It is if you have to defrost it and try to dig the giblets out of the cavity before cooking. You’ll freeze your little fingers right off! This time, I cooked it when I brought it home, and discovered that I’m willing to do that again. The actual roasting of the bird was a snap.

I rubbed it with olive oil, put cracked pepper, salt and rosemary on it (inside and out) and popped a few lemon slices inside it. Cook it for about an hour in a 350 degree oven and it’s ready to serve. Why did I think that was hard? My preparation time was ten minutes and then I got to read my new issue of Oprah while it cooked.

We will get the meat for those seven meals for a grand total of $5.44. Am I being thrifty, or what?

So, tell me…do you plan those meals ahead? Have you got a great recipe I can use for chicken the next time around?

Other posts you might enjoy:

1. Eschewing Meat
2. “Shelly, God Wants You To Fry”
3. Take An Elder Friend To Lunch
4. Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner.
5. They Call Themselves “Apple Geniuses”

Tagged as: chicken, in the kitchen, recipes, thrift