Cooking Ugghh!!

Granma's Chicken Stretch

One Chicken=3-4 Meals

I roast chicken pretty much like beef. That is, put whole chicken in the roaster pan (the one you used for the beef roast) with chopped up onion and chopped celery... Like I say, I never throw much away and this is a great way to use the tops off celery that most people throw away . Tops for this purpose can be kept in fridge in a baggie quite awhile or frozen by filling the baggie that the tops are in with water. Be sure and get as much air out as possible and leave a little room for the water to expand. If you freeze it this way you can just toss the frozen blob in the pan with chicken and it just adds moisture. Salt and pepper well.

Bake about an hour at about 350 degrees or until it is done enough to flake off the bone.

Meal 1: Baked chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy. Or..Baked chicken with rice and Chicken Gravy

Remove chicken body from pan and put on serving plate. Look in the roasting pan. Remember..think “pure gold” …with a streak of sunshine. Chicken broth is yummy and can be made from the goopy stuff left in the pan just by pouring in 3-6 cups water. With one of those serving spoons with holes in it dish out any slimy celery parts that don’t look appetizing to you. You may want to let it cool a few minutes so you can skim off any excess fat with a big spoon. Pour half into another pan to cool.

When it’s cool pour into baggies for freezing like you did the beef gravy so you can use it for other stuff. The half that you didn’t take out can be thickened with flour like you did with the beef.. Now you are looking at gravy again. Serve with 1: Hungry Jack instant mashed potatoes or 2: instant rice with a handful of broccoli tossed in, salad, green beans, buttered broccoli….anything green. Remember the bag of frozen hot rolls? Now is a good time.. Most of the white meat is gone at this meal but..

That still leaves a lot of meat. If it doesn’t, buy a bigger chicken or cook two next time. Let remains of chicken body cool. Pull the rest of meat off the bones..it will be a lot of really good dark meat but still some white meat around breastbone and ribs..and cut across the grain into chunks. Hopefully you will have two sandwich-size baggies of chicken cubes. One for each of two more meals.

Meal Two: Chicken Pot Pie In a large pan put three cups water or maybe four..dump in a bag of the frozen broth..a handful or two of flour, salt and pepper well and bring to boil while stirring like you did for gravy. If it doesn’t thicken fairly soon it isn’t gonna so make a paste of a 1/4 cup water and about 2-3 tblsp of flour and ad while stirring. It will lump a little (remember about putting thickening in hot stuff?) but no one will notice because everything else in pot pie is lumpy anyway. Dump in a half can of Cr of Chicken soup, (The other half can be frozen in a baggie for chicken and noodles etc.) a can of mixed vegetables, a bag of the frozen chicken chunks and heat long enough to thaw chicken chunks and thicken

Don’t overcook. Pour into bake dish or 9”X9” pan, cover with pie crust and bake at 400 degrees until crust is brown.

Pie crust is just flour and lard with a very small amount of water. The more water the tougher the crust. Generally about 1 ½ cups flour, salted, three heaping tblsp of shortening.. (Crisco or some cheaper thing in the round can..I always use cheap..) mix the shortening in by squishing it repeatedly with a fork until it looks dry-mealy like. It is right if you can pinch it and it stays together..now add a couple tblsp water or maybe four tblsp..you will be tempted to think it is too dry but just keep squishing with the fork.. it should make a ball in your fist now. If it does, roll it out and put on top of chicken stuff in pan and bake. If it doesn’t, it may never, so roll it out anyway. You’ll be surprised at how good it tastes anyway. Celery sticks are good with Chicken Pot Pie.

Meal 3: Chicken and Homemade noodles. Put a couple of quarts of water and a bag of frozen chicken goop/broth in a pan, salt well and bring to a strong boil. When boiling well, add noodles a few at a time so they will not stick together and stir. Adjust heat so they continue to boil but do not boil over. Noodles tend to scorch so stir and keep heat barely boiling. At first noodles will float..keep cooking, stirring occasionally until noodles don’t float anymore and are tender to bite into or fork.. When noodles are done there shouldn’t be much liquid on them..just soupy like.. drop in a bag of chicken chunks. For extra flavor you can add a half of a can of Cr of Chicken soup. A handful of frozen peas or carrots tossed in makes it look pretty.

Homemade noodles are easy. Put a couple of cups of flour in a big bowl..well maybe three cups. (Remember..cooking is a science..it is not the amounts as much as the relativity of each ingredient to the other.) Add a tsp of salt. I used to make really crappy noodles until someone told me to put a half tsp of baking powder in the flour so I do. Now I make good noodles. Baking Powder really makes tender noodles. With a big spoon make a well in the flour/salt/baking powder mix and break some eggs into the well. Start with three eggs. Now you squish the egg/flour mixture with a fork until it is just right. This takes practice. Strangely enough, the drier the dough the better the noodles. So when you roll it out it should be very dry. I generally put a half cup or so of flour on the roll-out board, wad up the dough and place it on the flour and start rolling. The dough should be dry enough that it is a little hard to roll out but will. I generally just roll out half at a time. It works better for me that way. Cut in strips..drop into boilng broth.

P.S. You can buy great frozen noodles and even packaged egg noodles make a good fast meal with left over chicken and broth.