Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Chicken? More please


When I signed up here Blimpy said ''This is not a music blog'', which is something I tend to forget.

And so, to do my non-musical share, here is an excerpt from food blog Cheap Healthy Good.

How To Make 17 Delicious Meals From 1 Chicken

The budget – for EVERYTHING - was $25.
I had to use as much food already in my pantry as possible. (Which accounted for a lot, and saved me mad dough in the long run.)
Each meal had to feed at least two people (The Boyfriend and me).
Bonus points for leftovers.
The chicken had to be used up within a few days, so it wouldn’t go bad.
The meals had to have reasonable variety, preferably from a range of cuisines. It couldn’t be Chicken with Spaghetti on Day 1, then Chicken with Penne on Day 2.
The meals had to have very little added fat, since the leftover chicken would provide most of it.
What about it Spillers, before checking the link could you do it? What would you make?

37 comments:

Shoegazer said...

What do you mean it's not a music blog?

nilpferd said...

We've had to get by on very little cash for longer periods recently, but I wouldn't try binging on chicken, not least because chicken raised according to good husbandry principles isn't cheap, and cheap chicken is highly dodgy, both in nutrition terms and in terms of the quality of the animal's life. As anyone's gran will tell you, protein-wise when money is tight you're best off using small amounts of cheap cuts of good quality beef for stews and soups, but in general a largely meat-free diet is the best way to eat nutritiously, cheaply and morally. Seasonal fruit and veg, lots of grains and pulses, unfashionable herbs, free range eggs, milk, small amounts of cheese, and the aforementioned beef were the staples for us, obviously arranged to maximise the usage of leftovers.

gremlinfc said...

As a vegetarian of over 20 years I'd starve , but...I'll wrack me brains and try and come up with a non-meat alternative, it's got to be possible, after all back in the late 80s / early 90s we survived with peanuts AND 2 little 'uns...

saneshane said...

each time the lovely chicken laid an egg - make yourself another dish.. added to what you've grown in the garden or foraged in the woods... sorted. 17 meals from one chicken.

(warning: such unvaried meals could make you parp more than a bagpiper)

Abahachi said...

Slightly puzzled: presumably '17 meals' actually means '17 helpings', as otherwise I think this is impossible. If that is the case, and assuming a decent-sized, properly raised chicken (so, as nilpferd notes, *not* cheap supermarket birds), then I'd try something like this:

Roast chicken (2 helpings), then strip meat off the carcass and make stock from bones and bits.

Thai Chicken curry, with coconut milk, courgettes, aubergines, potatoes etc. (4 helpings at least)

Chicken and broccoli lasagne (4 helpings)

Chicken & mushroom pie with potato pastry (4 helpings)

Chicken & lentil curry (should be able to do 4 helpings) OR chicken risotto (ditto)

Carole said...

Poach the chicken in water with lots of vegetables.

Strip the meat off the bones and use to make a chicken gratin (use some stock to make a creamy cheese sauce), curry, maybe chicken rissoles too.

Use some of the stock and vegetables to make soup.

Use the rest of the stock to make risotto.Make more than you need so you can make arancini with the leftover rice.

TatankaYotanka said...

My happy chooks always yield a tail end of at least 8 portions based on the stock (risotto, minestrone, chicken noodle soup) ... but you've got to make the stock properly to condense the flavours; i.e. roast and brown the carcass, add your aromatics, chuck in a decent store cupboard stock cube for an extra couple of pints and Bob's your over familiar step brother. Of course, if you're not required to make sequential meals for the same two people; a decent chicken, a good sized loaf of bread and store cupboard/veg rack ingredients will make you enough first rate chicken soup for 20 meals without being stingy.

TatankaYotanka said...

And then I checked the link ...

Hmmm.

TatankaYotanka said...

A 6.99lb chicken; must have been a capon or misidentified turkey.

nilpferd said...

See what you mean re the link TY; it's more of a "3 days until the Oscars, what do we do for fun in the evenings" menu plan rather than a "ye had nowt but gravel t' eat? Luxury!" menu plan.

And have these people never heard of freezers?

Donds for shane's answer.

DarceysDad said...

Anything *EXCEPT* a chicken broth, please!! As I noted on the recent EOTWQs, I still live with the horror memories of my mother's version.

Fortunately, the amply stocked cupboards chez DsD would serve us well in achieving variation within the limited extra-spend budget; fairly sure the meals here would include a chicken, yellow pepper & cashew stir-fry; a little murgh in a saag or mutter paneer curry (taking advantage of the packet of cheese bought last week); [spicy-]hot chicken tortilla wraps (hmmm, how expensive are avocadoes at the moment?); an otherwise vegetarian soup - probably carrot & orange, looking at the contents of the fruit bowl this evening - made with the stock (no doubt accompanied by a fresh DsMam 'heavy loaf' - though she hates me calling it that: it's a variation on soda bread discovered by accident one day when the buttermilk turned out to be unusable. All four of us devour it with indecent haste!)

DAMNATION! I'm hungry now . . . .

DarceysDad said...

Oh, and Aba? How small to you reduce your broccoli heads to for that lasagne? Sounds interesting.

I'm with Garfield on lasagne:
"WHEN THE LASAGNA CONTENT IN MY BLOOD GETS LOW, I GET MEAN."

DsD fave variations include sausage lasagne (a little - ONLY A VERY little! - stewed apple in the tomato sauce layers), and fish & spinach lasagne (haddock for convenience here in Yorkshire, but as long as it's white fillet flakes, it works).

The vegetarians may like to consider a nut and spinach version: it would be crushed cashews in our house, because we always have a big bag in. I can't completely recommend it though, as I've never found the right ingredients to go with the nuts to make a sauce for that layer that really works ... all suggestions welcome !!

Shoegazer said...

Enough recipes; bring on the chicken playlist.

tincanman said...

Does that mean we can look forward to a chicken playlist post from you Shoey?

God, remember the bad old days of paper when the more 'posts' you had, the more trees you need. Am loving this modern age when anyone can start a post and peeps can add on or skip it as they please.

DarceysDad said...

Personally I'd order four fried chickens; some dry white bread, toasted; and a coke, but ...

Working my way from the living creature to binning the over-stored remnants:

Marnie Stern - Put All Your Eggs In One Basket
Little Feat - Dixie Chicken
Songs: Ohia - The Old Black Hen
The Triffids - Chicken Killer
The Magnetic Fields - A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off
Drive-By Truckers - Mama Bake A Pie (Daddy Kill A Chicken)
Jimi Hendrix - Little Wing
Terence Trent D'Arby - Supermodel Sandwich
MSTU - Chicken Fat Waltz
Groanbox Boys - Chicken Foot
The Moldy Peaches - Steak For Chicken
Clutch - When Vegans Attack.

That do yuh, Shoey?

Lots of warming meals there to save you from the horrible weather outside your door at the moment!
(I'm not spying, my mam's at Lake Berkley again right now, and whingeing about the lack of warmth.)

;o)

Shoegazer said...

Not bad, Darce, not bad.

Tin, am supposed to do some more research/listening for AOTM - see how devoted I am? it's a possibilty, although Shane & me went off on a meat tangent last year when rr threw-up a dullish theme. Cutler, Cooper Clarke & Perry tunes with something from Frank Chickens would be the starting point for my chicken recipe.

DarceysDad said...

Damn! I forgot to include
The Bobby Charltons - Sunday Lunch
between Stephin Merritt and DBT.

steenbeck said...

My mom tells this story about how, in her early days of marriage, she followed some money-saving recipe where you were supposed to put all your leftover meat in a pot on the stove and just keep it simmering for days. Apparently they had never been SO SICK!

Song-wise, I'd add Back at the Chicken Shack - Jimmy Smith, Fried Chicken - Nas, Return to Hot Chicken - Yo La Tengo, and 5 Piece Chicken DInner - BEASTIE BOYS.

I liked the meat topic, it proved surprisingly fruitful. What topics have you actually liked, Shoey?

Shoegazer said...

Perhaps a Kenny Rogers tune (if he had any good ones). He opened a chain of Kenny Rogers Roasters chicken restaurants. A NJ neighbourhood made him close one of his "stores" as they were choking on mesquite fumes.

Not as tangenital as Sunday Lunch, but there you go.

TonNL said...

Rufus Thomas - Funky Chicken
the Fools - Psycho Chicken

ps. don't think you can buy a nice Label Rouge Bresse chicken (that's a perfect tasting chicken that at least had a nice life) for a price like that....

nilpferd said...

One I used to cook a lot in student flats..
Donde esta la pollo by The Headless Chickens.

tincanman said...

I must remember that line Shoey.
''Headphones on AGAIN?''
''Sorry dear, just doing some research.''

For my chicken song, I'll serve up Southern Culture on the Skids - 8 Piece Box about a KFC drive-through window. I nominated it for something or other on RR a couple months ago. Can't remember if it got picked, but odds are not so its still available.

sonofwebcore said...

Morning folks, I haven't looked at the link - but a 7lb chicken means it's a boiling fowl, which (for a family of five) will provide 3 days of fabulous soup made simply by boiling the fowl for two hours, skimming any fat and scum off the surface as you go. Remove the bird and add to the liquid one chopped onion, a diced carrot (not really necessary, but good), a teaspoon of any dried mixed herbs, and a small handful of rice (Basmati works well). Now add to the soup some shredded leg and wing meat, but not too much, it'll just make it top heavy. Leave to simmer and reduce slightly while the vegetables soften. Done. You will be left with up to 2 kilos of chicken breast meat to use as you like.
A 7lb (3 kilo) boiling fowl costs £5 in Liverpool's St. John's Market.

treefrogdemon said...

Chicken by Jenni Clair and Geoff Muldaur

lambretinha said...

... Jo Jo & The Fugitives - Chips, Chicken, Banana Split

yummeh!

saneshane said...

I think the theme was a dull one - not the actual MEAT theme steen.. when meat came up I had this and the Duck list we'd all done.. sometimes life's like that.. here'S what I remember:

Chicken Pussy -Bongwater
A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off -The Magnetic Fields
Chicken Spit- Pest
Like Irregular Chickens - Kid Koala
Chicken Strut- The Meters
Chicken-Bone Circuit- RJD2
Chicken Yamas- Von Sudenfed
Spring Chicken- Brakes

now to connect up a new dvd/cd writer and a printer.. ummm are you supposed to unplug thissssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssszzzzzzzzzzzzzllllllllleeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

tincanman said...

Shane , you must ALWAYS clip the red wire first

tincanman said...

oh shit, I mean GREEN

tincanman said...

no, no. WAIT. It was red

tincanman said...

Shane?
I say, Shane?
yoo hoo shaney waney
gulp

saneshane said...

THAT'S THE LAST TIME I TAKE ADVICE FROM YOU TIN.....

on the plus side I can eat my own right arm for lunch.

tincanman said...

thought you were vegetarian

saneshane said...

I'm not.. but my family are.. and as I do the cooking mostly... by default I've become a creative veggie cook.

A veggie diet is easier and cheaper.. we grow a lot of what we eat.
( but I'm not going to stop noshing a bacon buttie once in a while or my right arm - if it's there and cooked!)

debbym said...

@ DsD
Concerning vegetarian lasagne: TheBoyWonder is a Growing Boy With Hollow Legs who'd like meat three times a day, please, but even he enjoyed a lasagne I made recently using red lentils in a tomato sauce - with pureed leftovers from this Nigel Slater recipe for the white layer. Worth a try?

Music? I can only think of Paul Simon's Mother & Child Reunion or the old German cabaret song about longing to be a chicken, Ich wollt ich wär ein Huhn (here by the Palast Orchester with their singer Max Raabe)

@ tfd
Somebody else knows Geoff Muldaur!

Shoegazer said...

Missed your theme question, Steen. It's usually a bad RR week if the RR theme is too broad, too narrow or too similar to another recent theme. Picking a good one get's harder as the game goes on - & the gurus do a fine job of picking good un's, on the whole (they tend to avoid the 3 traps of dullness after screwing up once or twice, early in their tenure).

Echoing what Nilp said recently, one of the joys of rr is rediscovering your own music & that would not be possible without someone picking a theme to focus on.

The actual rr meat theme was a little dull, but only because we had covered it over here a few months - so it's all Shane's fault.

You have me pegged correctly as a GHE type - but it's only because I drink too quickly.

steenbeck said...

Shoey -
I Drink too quickly, too. I always have. I blame it on my big mouth.

I was afraid the question came off as snide, and I meant it sincerely. I'm curious about what other people consider to be interesting topics. I've liked most of them. All but maybe 3. Some more than others, of course. I'm having trouble connecting to this one, but I think it's cause I'm distracted.

ANyway, sorry if I came of as snarky, it wasn't meant that way.

Shoegazer said...

Nah, you're not snarky - you're a sweetheart. Did think I might have pissed you off somehow in my post 1st think later stylee.