As Food Prices Soar, So Do Sales Of Spam

Sure you can. I do it all the time, at least 2x a month especially in the winter. 10 lb chicken - Sunday, roast chicken (mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, vegs). In a day or so, hot roast chicken sandwiches, use up the rest of the stuffing, and mashed potatoes. Pick it apart with your fingers, getting any decent sized pieces off and tearing them up. There’s your casserole pieces, say with bowtie pasta, mixed veggies or throw some broccoli/cauliflower/carrot chunks in, some frozen peppers from the garden, any gravy leftovers. Maybe a can of cream of chicken or mushroom if it’s thin, a can of milk and bake. Just like those frozen bags of skillet dinners you can buy now but much, much better.

**THEN**, you take whatever is left. Bones, meat, skin, bits of dripping off the serving platter and throw it in the stock pot. Chop up and throw in an onion, several large carrots and stalks of celery, some buillion. Let it simmer for awhile and cool, then strain. There is still going to be a ton of meat there, most people throw it away. You have to pick through it with your fingers, throw the scraps away (skin, bones, squishy carrot, lol). When you’re done, you have enough stock for a soup or stew, along with meat already in it. Cook some diced up carrots and potatoes, frozen peas and top with biscuit dough when it’s boiling and you’ve got stew with dumplings. Or cook it in the oven with crust and you’ve got pot pie.

The turkey that fed us for 8 days was 25 lbs so I had more to work with. People throw away an awful lot of meat with the carcass if they don’t stew and pick it. Sometimes I’ll just stew it and get my stock then freeze that until I’m ready to use it. There are usually at least one or two meals left on the birds when most people throw it out. I’ve been doing it for 23 years, as my mother and her mother did. It can be done.

Good post back when I was money deprived wife and I bought a “roasting chicken” from the local supermarket not your little fryer but a big chicken. That thing fed us for a week at least. About the time we got to chicken stock noodle soup I was getting tired of it but I was not hungry. We of course did other similar things to stretch the food budget, the point is that many people in this country think that a cheap meal is a fast food joint and have no idea how to simply cook cheap for themselves.

LOL at your ‘getting tired of it’. I still remember on payday that week asking hubby “I’m going grocery shopping tonight, is there anything you want me to pick up?” and his reply was “RED MEAT!!”

During the infamous Week Of The Turkey (although that was the first, it wasn’t the only week we’ve had to do that over the years) we ate well too. One of the things I made that week (desperate or just creative?) was turky spaghetti. I did have a jar of Ragu and I threw in a lot of bite sized pieces of turkey and added a bunch of parmesan cheese. It turned out to be one of my sons’ favorite meals and I still make it to this day, chicken or turkey. One nice thing about cooking with a whole chicken like that is you pretty much have several meals that week that are good and *fast*, after the initial roast on Sunday and the time spent stewing and picking. *That* is how you eat homecooked and well, year after year.

Okay, where do you buy this 10 lb. chicken? I just called the meat department at the grocery and they laughed when I asked if I could buy a 10 pounder. They said 5 or 6 is very large. You would have to buy a turkey if you wanted 10 lbs. Do you buy them at a special place? I was raised on a farm and we sold chickens and eggs and never dressed out a 10 lb. chicken.

I buy them at Walmart, Perdue Oven Stuffer. Before Walmart came to town, I bought them at Farm Fresh. Sometimes at Farm Fresh it was the ‘store brand’ of whole chicken. They don’t always come that big but I’ll buy the biggest one they have. I can still do all the stuff I mentioned with an 8lb bird and sometimes that’s all I have to work with. Capons usually are about 8-10lbs. Large, whole chickens are getting harder to find because most people want skinless breasts or ready to reheat chicken pieces.

My 21 year old son laughed when I told him about this thread and he said “You do amazing things with one chicken. I’ve seen you do it all my life.” I even buy a whole chicken cut up if that’s all I can get (and that’s usually only about $3 or $4) and stew that. Then I’ll get a couple meals out of just that. It’s that Yankee ingenuity and thriftiness I suppose.

I'm going to look for a Perdue Oven Stuffer. That would be great! I wonder if our WalMart has them? Have you ever smoked one in a smoker? My husband has this Traeger Smoker Grill that he is crazy over. I'm here to tell you that pizza is not good in a smoker. I don't know whatever possessed him.......LOL! He has even smoked Grilled Cheese--that weren't grilled....of course, he thought they were great!

What area of the country do you live in? I'm wondering about that big chicken and where I can find it....

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.