How to Make One Chicken Last for Three Meals
Blog Reader, Danielle, emailed me the following:
"Rubber Chicken"- How to Make One Chicken Last for Three Meals
First Day- Roast the chicken in water (2-3 inches) with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Serve some of the meat with mashed potatoes or something else very filling. Save leftover chicken and water from roasting (that's your soup base) and chicken carcass.
Second Day- Take leftover chicken, cut up into bitesize pieces, and saute 1 onion and 2 stalks of celery (tops and all- the leaves add more flavor). Take all of this and put it in a crockpot. Add uncooked rice (However many cups you think you'll need- we use 2 c. uncooked- you want plenty so that you have leftovers.) and add as much water that the rice package calls for. Add salt, pepper, garlic- and any other seasoning that you like. Cook on High for 4 hrs- this works well for Sunday lunch or dinner. Save all the leftovers.
Third Day- Skim the cold hard fat off the stock. Heat up the stock in a large pot. Add the chicken carcass and more of water- enough to make stock for your soup. Boil for a couple of hours. Cool a bit and strain the stock and replace the stock into your pot. Add any meat left on the carcass and the leftover chicken and rice to the stock. You may want to add more sauteed onions, celery, carrots, etc. You could also add more veggies or boullion for flavor. Be creative- it takes a time or two to get the feel of it. Serve this with a loaf of french bread or some homemade rolls- and you have a really good meal.
Also, you could take the leftover chicken and rice and add other things: To go Cajun, add some sausage and beans and more cooked rice and spices. To go Mexican, add beans, corn and spices. Or try something Asian, add veggies, water chestnuts, soy sauce.
posted by Crystal Paine at 2:01 PM
4 Comments:
I think this is such a brilliant plan. I have done it once or twice and it can stretch quite a bit for 2 people! :) Rubber chicken is the word. I wonder if there are other types of roasted meats that have a similar "rubber" plan idea around. Hmm...
Oh and the reason I'm commenting at all was I thought you know if you wanted you could make practically any soup that used chicken stock as a base. There are lots of vegetable soups recipes out there that use chicken stock, or chicken noodle soup. Yum! :)
This appears to be one of "Laine's Letters". I've learned much from Laine. If you do a search under "Laine's Letters" you can go to her website and read all of her back issues.
What a great suggestion! We do something similar--the first meal, the chicken is roasted, and we pick off and dice the meat afterwards. There's usually enough for 1 and a half more meals-3-4 cups of chicken--one meal might be chicken salad, another hot chicken salad sandwiches.
I do this same concept with other kinds of meats too.
We will eat a roasted chicken. Then I pick the meat off the bones and we have casseroles or chicken and dumplings off of it. When I think I have gotten off all the chicken I can, I boil the carcas. It makes a nice stock, and I can pick another cup or so of meat off the carcas. Then I put the meat in the strained stock with any leftover bits of veggies, pasta, and whatnot that might be in the fridge. It makes what I call Free Soup.
We do the same thing with roast beef. Day 1 is roast with potatoes and carrots (a.k.a. new england boiled dinner). Then we have stroganoff, BBQ sandwiches, use the leftover BBQ for homemade BBQ pizza, and hash. Then any leftover roast makes another nice batch of Free Soup (along with any other leftovers that might be hanging around in the fridge).
I plan all of my meals for the week around what meat is on sale at the grocery store.
We usually have a homemade pizza sometime during the week. Pizza is so cheap to make, and I top it with whatever leftover meats and veggies happen to be in the fridge that need to be used up. I have come up with some pretty good combinations this way.
As you may have guessed, Free Soup is another favorite meal in my home. No two soups ever come out the same. It is a great way to use up those veggies in the fridge that are getting a bit soft or those 3 Tablespoons of green beans that no one ate on Thursday. I keep a bag in the freezer for all those little bits and peices of this and that. Then I can just dump it into my stock and make a nice soup. It is great with bisciuts or bread.
Speaking of biscuts, they are a great way to stretch a meal. Many meals lend themselves nicely to being served with biscuts or corn bread even if they already have another starch with them. A very filling, cheap, meal stretcher.
I just keep rattling on and on. . . I had better stop now.
Annie
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