Monday, April 28, 2014

$1 Chicken DinnerS



You see those delicious looking chickens rotating around at Walmart becoming a splendidly roasted, seasoned dinner all the time.  Growing up, we never got them, and quite honestly, I'm not sure why.  For just under $5, you have the hardest part of the meal complete!  It's just a little bit more than you would pay to buy the 3 lb chicken raw and cook it yourself, so to me, it is worth it just because of the fact that you don't have to use your gas/electricity all day to cook it and risk burning it (or in my case, burning yourself).  But I think I managed to about get my money back by buying one of those chickens, and I was so excited about it that I decided to share it with you today.

Go pick the best looking, 3 lb roasted chicken in whatever flavor you desire.  I can't remember what ours was, but we did notice it was quite salty--a treat for me and a couple extra glasses of water for my husband.  You can either cook your sides like mashed potatoes and carrots yourself, or buy them.  Cooking your carrots yourself will actually add to what you're going to do with the remains of your chicken.

Now we are only a 2 people eating solid food family so we had about half of the chicken left over.  If you're a bigger family, you might want to consider purchasing 2 chickens or you'll just have less leftovers.  With the left over chicken, I made chicken salad and chicken tacos.  Save it in your fridge, and shred it the next day.  For the salad, just add it to your usual salad.  The chicken tacos are just a little bit more work, but it's already cooked so it saves you so much time!  Then you can either use a package of taco seasoning or since I didn't have that in my pantry I used this recipe from AllRecipes.com, add about 1/2 cup of water and heat on the stove.  I already had corn tortillas in the fridge that I heated in the microwave for a few seconds for some low-fat soft taco shells.  It was delicious!


Don't throw away your carcass either, because this is where you make your money back (if you don't consider the labor you save buying it pre-made and using it as leftovers as savings already).  You can make delicious chicken stock with your carcass to freeze for later.  I found this really good recipe at Closet Cooking for Homemade Chicken Stock.  I was able to use some onions and carrots that needed to be used up.  I didn't have any celery, so I just left that out, but it's not like a little celery is going to ruin it.  I was able to make enough chicken stock to equate to about $4 worth of what you would have paid at the grocery store.  Which in my mind means, I only paid $1 for my chicken dinnerS for two people!  I ladled my stock into freezer bags in a mix of 1 and 2 cup portions, laid them flat in my freezer, and went on with my day.

Another thing which I can't actually recommend doing, but I did anyway is I tossed some of the leftover bones to the dog after I had made my chicken stock.  Technically, you aren't supposed to feed dogs chicken bones because they may splinter causing them to choke, but I obviously am a horrible dog-mother and chose to ignore that fact.  For those of you concerned, she lived to beg for more chicken bones.  I also gave her the leftover carrots from the stock since you were supposed to discard them anyway, and carrots are in fact good for dogs.  She was over the moon with chicken flavored carrots!  Saving money on dog treats means I had even more savings.  My chicken was free.  :)

If you just take a look at some of your leftovers, you really can go a long way with them.  Try to get creative.  Green onions that are partially leftover with the roots still can be placed in a cup of water to grow more green onions.  They produce quite a bit more and then they start to fade and that is when you take them out, chop them up and put them in your freezer.  They'll be waiting for you the next time you need them, and are just about as good as the fresh ones.  Your leftover carrot tops, onions, and celery can be used for making the chicken stock in this recipe--just put them in your freezer until you're ready for them.  Bread that is nearing its use by date can be placed in the freezer and only takes a few seconds per slice to thaw out.  You can buy discounted "day old" bread at most grocery stores and put it in the freezer for later.  There are so many ways to save if you just give it a shot.

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