Two Chickens; Many Meals
The article “Birds in Hand” from the March issue of Gourmet intrigued me. Roast two chickens at once, it said, to produce a chicken dinner for four, then use the leftovers for three more meals. Something about this kind of one-stop all-week shopping appeals to the thrifty housewife in me, so I decided to give it a go.
What I didn’t know, though, was that I’d be seeing those chickens for quite some time. My sons, 5yo Drake and 3yo Guppy, are picky, though improving, eaters. So the meals for four sometimes stretched out to lunches and leftovers, as the boys sometimes opted for PBJs, cereal, and other kid-friendly dinner substitutes.
I began with Roast Chicken with Pan Gravy and served Panfried Smashed Potatoes on the side.
I used the leftover roast chicken to make Cheesy Chicken and Mushroom Lasagne. The kids wouldn’t touch it, but G and I devoured it.
Next up were Chicken Gyros with Cucumber Salsa and Tsatsiki. Again the kids were suspicious of such a multi-layered meal, but I thought it was delicious.
With still more roast chicken to use, I made the Chicken Tostadas again. Drake pronounced them, “Spicy, but awesome!” And if you know what kind of eating struggles we’ve had with him, you’ll know I just about broke down and cried.
But I still had leftover chicken and tomato sauce. So I put that over tortilla chips, covered it with cheese, topped it with the leftover iceberg lettuce and radishes for Chicken Nachos, recipe adapted from Cooks Illustrated.
Still not done, I took a last serving of the chicken nachos, heated them up in the cast iron skillet, added in two eggs, and had a Mexican chicken scramble.
After all this, I still had Leftover Roast Chicken Stock to make. I threw in two carcasses and the odds and ends in my veggie bin, then made a Leek and Pea Risotto. The recipe called for calamari. I tried trout instead. Bad call. Better to have skipped the protein entirely.
Then I was done, right? Alas, no. I still had a cup of Pan Gravy from the first recipe. So I heated up a bag of frozen fries, topped them with Wisconsin cheese curds, melted them in the oven, then covered them in gravy to make Poutine, a staple of Canadian diners.
That, my friends, was finally the end of the two roast chickens. Thirteen days. Eight different recipes, nine if you count making the stock. Everything but the trout was good, some things were great. But it was an enormous undertaking, and continually reusing all the food was tiring. It’s not an experience I’ll be repeating anytime soon.
Next up, I think, lots of small, simple, meals that I’ll try to make both veggie based and kid to friendly. Yeah, those aren’t mutually incompatible, are they? I can but try.
May 30th, 2009 at 9:15 am
We are just a family of two, so one roast chicken generally lasts us quite a bit. My go-to recipe for leftovers is to make a chicken pot pie out of it, or to do chicken salad for lunches. It sounds like next time you could get away with just making one roast chicken as well! I do admire your perseverance in using up all of your chicken and gravy! You’ve given me a bunch of meal ideas to think over, since I’ve told Tony that we won’t be eating out for the next 5 weeks. Only homemade meals in that time… I hope I can do it! (oh, one other suggestion, is you could do a “tuna casserole” but substitute chicken instead… I did this last night (making everything from scratch - no canned soup for me!) and it was great).
May 30th, 2009 at 9:28 am
It probably works better with two teens in the house. I’ll stop at Costco, pick up two deli chickens, and the four of us will eat slightly more than one, with enough leftovers for 1-2 meals (2 if one of the meals is chicken salad for lunch for my husband and I).