How many meals can you make from one chicken?
Monday - I pulled a 6 1/2 pounder (One of the 18 we raised ourselves this summer) from our freezer. He made a delicious roast.
Tuesday - The chicken was boiled for two hours with some spices. I drained the broth and then picked the chicken, putting the meat and bones back in the fridge. I was left with 7 cups of tasty broth. Half was frozen and the other half became the base of a potato and ham soup.
Wednesday - Chicken stir-fry.
Thursday - The bones (after I cracked them) went into a pot with a bay leaf, onions, garlic, a carrot and some old tomatoes and celery I'd tucked away in the freezer and boiled away for hours on end to make about 4 cups of stock. A big portion of the chicken meat was made into a hot chicken sandwich for my husband's lunch.
Friday - I used the stock and leftover meat to make chicken noodle soup for the kids and I for supper.
So, counting the future soup I'll make with the broth in the freezer that's six meals. That's pretty darn good.
In retrospect I would have used the stock for the ham and potato soup and the broth for the chicken noodle soup but frankly, it was all tasty and I am pretty darn pleased with myself.
Friday, January 3, 2014
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
It's All About the Food
I think the foundation of running a family is making sure everybody has good food to eat. Everything else seems to build on that and when I forget that and the family has dry cereal for breakfast, Kraft Dinner for lunch and chicken nuggets and french fries for supper (yeah, this happens) then nobody does well. I know this. I believe in this. I forget this ALL THE TIME. I am slowly, by inches, getting more consistent but I still backslide and force my family to eat premade fish sticks with canned rice waay too often.
Anyhow, as a mea culpa for all those times, today was about food.
There were fried egg sandwiches for breakfast.
Then I hauled out those bell peppers I found at the grocery store today (16 in all) and chopped the bejesus out of them.
You'll also notice the leftover chicken broth I made yesterday in the white dish by the slow cooker. I froze it in the dish before bagging it because I've learned that when you just pour it in the bag and then freeze it freezes around wrinkles in the bag making it hard to get out later or around the wire shelves in the freezer making it an absolute bitch to remove. I put the dish in a bowl of hot water for a minute to loosen it and then bagged it. Smart girl. In the slow cooker are the leftover bits from the same chicken and some veggies and herbs which are slowly being turned into stock.
And here's the prize from all the chopping. 8 portions of bell peppers to go in the freezer for spaghetti sauce or pasta and sausages or whatever I choose to use them for. The awesome thing is that if you squint a bit it looks like I have a huge stash of gummi bears. If only.
Next I took the clearance hot dog buns and split them to freeze. There were two 12 pack bags so I split them into sixes to make them more manageable for lunches.
And now? Now I have Nova Scotian oatmeal brown bread rising in the oven. This is not steamed/soda brown bread which people on the east coast of the US seems to think is brown bread. Nor the whole wheat bread that folks west of the Maritimes in Canada seem to think is brown bread. This is better then both. Much better.
Recipe? Ah yes.
Marvelous Nova Scotian Oatmeal Brown Bread.
Soak 1 cup of rolled oats (slow cooking/old fashioned) in 2 cups of boiling water for 1/2 hour to an hour.
Add 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of molasses, 2 tsp salt, and 1 tsp butter.
Put 2 1/4 tsps of yeast in 1/2 cup of warm water to proof. After ten minutes or so dump in with the rest. Mix in 3 cups of white flour and two cups of whole wheat flour. Knead for 10 minutes or until ready. Let rise until doubled. Punch down, separate into two loaf pans and let rise again. Bake at 350 for around 45 minutes.
And OMG, want to know why the butter bit is in red? Because as I typed that I realized I FORGOT TO ADD THE BUTTER.
Oh boy. And here I was, feeling like Super Homemaker Woman today. I guess we'll see what brown bread with no fat tastes like.
Darn.
Anyhow, as a mea culpa for all those times, today was about food.
There were fried egg sandwiches for breakfast.
Then I hauled out those bell peppers I found at the grocery store today (16 in all) and chopped the bejesus out of them.
You'll also notice the leftover chicken broth I made yesterday in the white dish by the slow cooker. I froze it in the dish before bagging it because I've learned that when you just pour it in the bag and then freeze it freezes around wrinkles in the bag making it hard to get out later or around the wire shelves in the freezer making it an absolute bitch to remove. I put the dish in a bowl of hot water for a minute to loosen it and then bagged it. Smart girl. In the slow cooker are the leftover bits from the same chicken and some veggies and herbs which are slowly being turned into stock.
And here's the prize from all the chopping. 8 portions of bell peppers to go in the freezer for spaghetti sauce or pasta and sausages or whatever I choose to use them for. The awesome thing is that if you squint a bit it looks like I have a huge stash of gummi bears. If only.
Next I took the clearance hot dog buns and split them to freeze. There were two 12 pack bags so I split them into sixes to make them more manageable for lunches.
And now? Now I have Nova Scotian oatmeal brown bread rising in the oven. This is not steamed/soda brown bread which people on the east coast of the US seems to think is brown bread. Nor the whole wheat bread that folks west of the Maritimes in Canada seem to think is brown bread. This is better then both. Much better.
Recipe? Ah yes.
Marvelous Nova Scotian Oatmeal Brown Bread.
Soak 1 cup of rolled oats (slow cooking/old fashioned) in 2 cups of boiling water for 1/2 hour to an hour.
Add 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of molasses, 2 tsp salt, and 1 tsp butter.
Put 2 1/4 tsps of yeast in 1/2 cup of warm water to proof. After ten minutes or so dump in with the rest. Mix in 3 cups of white flour and two cups of whole wheat flour. Knead for 10 minutes or until ready. Let rise until doubled. Punch down, separate into two loaf pans and let rise again. Bake at 350 for around 45 minutes.
And OMG, want to know why the butter bit is in red? Because as I typed that I realized I FORGOT TO ADD THE BUTTER.
Oh boy. And here I was, feeling like Super Homemaker Woman today. I guess we'll see what brown bread with no fat tastes like.
Darn.
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