Get that chicken!

I promised to tell you how many meals can come from one chicken, so here goes.

First you need a whole chicken, not the cut-up pieces you find in the grocery, but a real whole chicken. Don’t know how to cut one up? Just go to YouTube and follow their directions. Way back when I was a newlywed there was no YouTube so I just waded in. That first chicken had some funny-looking pieces, but I got better and faster with time.

Sometimes we think we have to have the whole chicken for a meal. Not true. Fry (or cook as you please) one piece per person for your family. Vegetables are much less expensive (and better for you) than meat. Each person gets one piece of chicken and can then fill up on vegetables. So, that’s one meal.

Cook the rest of the chicken. Take the meat off the bones and make a casserole and some chicken salad with the meat. The casserole recipe calls for more chicken? That’s okay. It will be quite tasty with less chicken in the casserole. That’s two meals.

You have the chicken salad for a sandwich meal. That’s three meals.

You still have the chicken bones with some meat left on those bones. Boil the chicken bones until the joints come apart, pick out the bones, add thickening and vegetables and have chicken soup. That’s four meals from one chicken. Now if you have a large family, this won’t work for four meals. My point is to use the chicken (meat) sparingly and cook more filling vegetables to fill your family up rather than making the chicken fill up everyone. In this crazy year our budgets need all the help they can get!

Until next time, be safe and look for old fashioned, less expensive ways to do things!