Comments On Article: How To Eat A Chicken

Thanks for the recipe idea. I'll try it.
Sibylle

Ann W- I remember walking into the kitchen after school and seeing noodles drying on the kitchen table, ready for my mom to cook them with our chicken and noodle dinner. We always ate them over mashed potatoes, too. One of my fondest memories! We also on occasion had beef and noodles.

Just putting this out there, but if you live in an area where it's legal to harvest roadkill, that can save a lot of money. I usually butcher out three roadkill deer per year, and that's almost the only meat I eat.  For me, avoiding other meat is more about animal welfare and avoiding being a hypocrite (I know I couldn't look a cow in the eyes and decide to kill it, no matter how humanely raised it was) but the frugality aspect is definitely a big plus too, with the way meat prices have gone up.  I get anywhere from 40 to 80 lbs of muscle meat depending on the size of the deer, plus organs (big fan of venison liver!) and bones for making bone broth.  I also like knowing exactly where my meat came from and how it was handled, especially for making jerky, where cleanliness is so important.

I used to cook a chicken a week until I realized it was MUCH cheaper to buy the rotisserie chickens at Costco for $4.98.  A raw chicken costs almost 3 times that, and I have to pay the electricity to cook it!  So I buy 2 chickens once a month (they are large too!), and when i get home i divide them into about 6 bags that I then freeze. Each bag is good for at least 2 bulk recipes that I then freeze the leftovers of.

This makes sense because the chickens at Costco and Sam’s Club are loss leaders.  If a person is okay with the ingredients they are a great way to get chicken.  Costco chickens do have a dairy ingredient (hydrolyzed casein) which makes them unsuitable for people with dairy allergies.  When my son ate chicken I would buy the rotisserie chicken at Sam’s Club because they didn’t have any dairy ingredients, finding like Sharon A says that they were no more expensive than purchasing the raw whole chickens.

I also have harvested roadkill venison.  I live in Indiana, corn fed and they are everywhere! I have even had one hit right in front of my property.  I don't use the organ meats though but will cook them for dog food.  If I don't have room in the freezer I pressure can the meat....it is so good!

Pressure canning keeps the meat very juicy and so tender. 

Beef prices are so high around here, have been eating a lot of chicken and pork when I eat meat.

Tea, have you ever used jerky to season soup beans? If not try it sometime, it is so good. 

Elbow deep in tomatoes, I have 12 pints and 4 quarts of sauce processing now. I will do 12 more pints of diced and then the rest are being made into salsa. We clean core and freeze them until about first of October and then we have a family salsa making get together. We will process close to 60 pints of salsa, for our use and son in law sells it at his workplace.

Ann W, I remember you mentioning this before and I have been careful to add buffer to each category that might have an increase, which is almost everything with the exception of our vehicle registrations which go down a little each year as the fees are based on the vehicle value and they depreciate it every year.  Those I have left at the current year’s fees, since any potential fee percentage increase would be offset by the depreciation.

We will retire with 2 years of expenses as an emergency fund.  This is one of the conditions I set for us for early retirement, and is the one we have been working diligently toward for years, in addition to saving money for the solar electricity system.

If money is tight and it not being organic, you might be able to find frozen chicken leg quarters in some stores, I know Walmart sells them. You can usually get them for 49 to 69 cents a pound. What I do when I get them is separate the thigh and leg, cut the partial backbone off the thigh.  Then I raw pack pressure can the thighs in wide mouth jars for the pantry. Then I cook all the legs in water, pick the meat off the bones and also pressure can with the broth and water if not enough broth. Then I use the leg meat for soups and to add to rice or pasta dishes. The thighs can be used in any way you use chicken that's been picked off a whole chicken. You could also just separate and cook as quarters in the oven.  Another thing I do is use half beef and half ground pork for meatloaf. It makes it a little less pricey. I also cook for 5 adults in my house and meat is a big part of the grocery budget, anyway I can put food in the pantry for later use is good for me.  Also on freezing jars you can cut an old sock and place over the jars so they won't break as easy.  This also works of your moving and have many jars to move. Rubbers bands around jars also help with moving them. I don't know if they would work in the freezer, might just make the rubber weak and break. I also pressure can pork loin in jars and use in any chicken dish.

Everyone is cooking chicken!  We don't often get one as they don't taste as good as home raised (and we're not currently raising any), but for the first time in a few months, we had roast chicken yesterday, chicken smothered in tomato sauce and cheese today, and one more meal tomorrow--maybe a chicken korma.  

My garden is overflowing with tomatoes and cucumbers;  not a usual occurrence here in Yorkshire.  Also apples, figs, plums and I actually have a whole allotment full of veg too.  Just made a load of pickled beetroot and have replanted the bed with cauliflower;  the now empty potato bed is resown with more beetroot seed, and the kohlrabi is in the fridge to make way for fennel and turnips.  I've always wanted to grow all my own vegetables and have been working at it since I married 21 years ago;  this year I think I achieved it--except I'm unprepared for the amount of work it takes to keep up with the harvest, especially storing and preserving everything.  There's not a tradition of canning here in the UK so I'm drying, pickling, freezing, fermenting.  And eating.

I hope you don't mind me sharing my new pjs which I made from a cotton duvet set I bought from a charity shop--I even used the matching buttons.  I also bought the pattern for the shorts from a charity shop (actually a trousers pattern that I shortened) and the top I copied from a long sleeved pj top I already own.  After my 5 year old saw them she asked for a pair too, which I only just finished today;  with hers I watched youtube videos on how to fully draft the patterns from scratch.  I'm not an expert:  mistakes were made, but luckily a duvet cover has a lot of material!  I had a fun break from my vegetables :)

Galadriel F those pajamas are so cute!

Sharon A.

Cooked chicken at supermarket here is $16

A frozen chicken equivalent size is $13.59

It makes sense to buy one already cooked however here in NZ we've been told not to re freeze them as bacteria can grow upon thawing and even after reheating. I have frozen left over cooked chicken from the Deli and am still alive hahaha

Galadriel F... Go you. Clever girl. Great to meet another woman recycling fabric

Tea S, where I live, we have to file a Wildlife Disposition Form and take a picture of the location of the dead deer to get permission to take roadkill. Other than standing around by the side of the road waiting for permission, that sounds like the best way to get meat, since there are no chemical additives. 

Galadriel F, love those! I like the stripe running in different directions and the flare on the shorts. :)

Kimberly,

     I know this sounds strange...but, I saw a TV show where someone was eating a great deal of chicken and her husband was having hives/itching issues.  They finally determined that it was the antibiotics the chicken was treated with that her husband was having an allergic reaction to.  Have you tried purchasing organic, pasture, farm raised chicken from a local farmer?  Just a thought.

You have to leave expansion room in the jar or it will break. 

Pam S, it’s so kind of you to consider what might be causing my chicken allergies!  The last chicken I tried was an organic, pastured chicken, and I cooked it with nothing but salt to make sure the chicken really is the issue.

I’ve had multiple food allergies since I was a child, and the condition of my ulcerated large intestine led to more allergies as an adult because of proteins entering the blood stream.  But I have to say, I had off and on itching for years and didn’t suspect chicken, even though I knew turkey made me itch!

My long term goal is to return to a pescatarian diet.  Most of my adult life I’ve been vegetarian or fully plant based, with a couple of years pescatarian and about 12 years of eating meat (broken up by other years).  If I can stay in remission and get enough protein on a pescatarian diet I’m going to do that, as my husband eats a vegetarian diet and my son eats plant based + eggs (ovo-vegetarian).  I’m eating vegetarian or pescatarian dinners about 4 days a week now.  I think this will also be more economical, as by pescatarian I pretty much mean eating canned tuna and canned wild salmon, with very little fresh wild fish.  Although, frozen wild ahi tuna from Aldi is only $6.50 per pound which is very reasonable for wild fish and is about the same price as ground beef most places

Thanks for the info on freezing jars.  I'm only hoping to keep a couple on the freezer door to avoid jiggling breakage.  I knew about the Parmesan lids, but never thought to try any others.  Thanks for mentioning that!

Galadriel, your jammies are adorable!  They look cool and comfortable.  My mom was an avid sew-er.

(Didn't like 'sewer'!!).  She often made us matching dresses and cute things.  I wish I had been more interested in learning myself.  I can often Franken-sew, changing something already made or mixing two articles of clothing, but making an entire item is probably beyond my skill set!

My cook up this week was half a pork loin in the crockpot.  I'll figure out a couple of things to make with them and mix in a couple of chicken nights with some cooked chicken I have in the freezer.  I hate using the oven in summer because our kitchen is already overly warm as it has too many windows and is facing the SW.  I just ordered some of those silver emergency blankets from the hardware store.  They're only $3.49 EA.  I'm going to cover the bay window and half the slider under the drapes to try and further reduce the sun's effect.  It's wonderful in winter, but like Hades in summer.

Instead of "sewer" people are using sewist which sounds much better!!

Joyce C., No, I've never tried that, but it does sound good.  Thanks for the tip!

Grandma Donna wrote,

Hi everyone, once again  you all have been here chatting away and I have never heard so many chicken stories and suggestions. Lol,

Hello Galadriel F, I love your pajamas!  They are adorable and it is good to see a picture of you, you are a lovely young lady.  Now I want to get busy sewing my curtain pajamas lol.  I made some curtains from sheets and have some leftover and thought it would be nice to match my curtains since nobody but Charles will see me in my PJ's.   

I am enjoying your conversations, never thought we would read about road kill, as long as it hasn't been there too long, I guess best it does not go to waste.  :)  Donna

Cute PJ’s Galadriel :) How have you found your growing season this year with such a dry summer here in the UK, we live in Suffolk and have hardly had a drop for a month. I’ve been reining back on what I grow the last couple of years due to lack of freezer space for the excess produce and think my family are fed up with being handed so many courgettes! 

I know, normally it's a question of when will it stop raining!  My turnips didn't like the heat and went woody and bitter, and I'm having to pick lettuces quickly as they start to bolt but surprisingly everything else has been very happy.  Fed up with courgettes?  Crazy!

Thanks for the nice comments on my pjs, to you and everyone else.  I hope you make yours too, Donna :)

Yes, it does!! LOL!!  Thanks for letting me know.

Gr.Donna, 

When I stew a chicken with veggies as you did, I fish out the veggies and blitz them in the blender, add that to cubed dry bread and seasoning and make a chicken flavored dressing/stuffing. It's like homemade stove top stuffing. What do you do with the veggies?

Today I was able to get so many different fruits from the mark down rack in our fruit/veg market. I washed and cleaned all of it and made 5 1 gallon bags of mixed fruit for my morning smoothie. Each bag by weight and volume would equal 4 or 5 bags of frozen fruits from the store and they are 8.99 each and up. I have less than 30.00 in all. I am so thankful and pleased. 

I make my own yogurt for the smoothies as it is so much cheaper and it's really easy to do.

Grandma Donna Wrote,

Joyce C,

Charles and I usually eat them with some of the chicken for the first meal.  I like it over rice, I only use two carrots, one stalk of celery and one onion so there is not a lot of the veggies. I have always used the recipe from the ball canning book when making stock or broth and that is what it calls for.

Your flavored dressing good sounds good and all natural.   Donna :)  

 I loved this article! It inspired me to go out and buy 2 affordable whole chickens. I roasted one and put the other in the crock  pot. They came out delicious, but unfortunately, were not any better received than a Costco rotisserie chicken. My family hardly noticed the difference, and I wound up begging them to finish the chicken way more than I wanted to. Perhaps I should have only cooked one. 

Unfortunately, I think for my family, it's far more practical and affordable to just buy that Costco chicken from now on. I know it has chemicals, but it took a lot of time, effort, and power to cook my chickens. Plus, the time I stressed over how to convince my family to eat the chicken all week. It's just not worth it for me. 

It depresses me that I've come to this conclusion. It's certainly not the outcome I expected. But, my husband travels quite a bit and the kids are busy with band and color guard. I think it's the season of life we're in. As much as I hate it, I have to prioritize convenience into my food budget. Otherwise, I'll lose my mind! LOL

Melissa,

don't get down about the chickens, if it's cheaper and your family prefers the Costco variety then go with what makes you comfortable.

I wouldn't expect the family to eat chicken all week at least not in the same form.  Casseroles, salads, sandwiches, tacos etc.  Also, I freeze extra and thaw later to use in various ways.

We are often given bags of frozen chicken hind quarters at the bi-monthly mobile food pantry and so many people refuse them, throw them away or pass them on because they don't have freezer space.  I tell them to cook it right away, pick off the meat and freeze what they can't use right away.  A small package or two of chicken will not take up much freezer space.  I guess if you have a family and get multiple boxes it might be more difficult but for one person it's quite easy.  I put into the fridge overnight to thaw, into the sink in cold water the next morning to break apart and then into the crockpots or roaster in the oven.  Come to think of it, I once had three or four bags to deal with, and I ended up using my electric roaster to cook all at once.  It was hard for my hands to pick off all the meat which I then pressure canned in pints.  It's so handy to open a jar and make a meal without having to cook the chicken.   Another plus for me when dh was still living is he would only eat white meat, but when I used the pressure canned chicken, he had no problem eating it.  The main thing was I cut the meat into chunks before canning so there were no long stringy pieces from the thighs.

I wouldn't expect my family to eat chicken all week in the same form either, Ann. I try to be as inventive as possible with leftovers as well. My 12 yo son has sensory issues with food. He's come such a long way, but it's still something I need to take into consideration. I've butt heads with a few elder family members because they feel I should force him to eat what I make and deal. That is not my parenting style at all. If anything, I am too accommodating and I'm perfectly fine with that.

I shared my perspective because, although so many of us in this forum are accomplishing wonderful things, some might be struggling with adjusting our households to reflect a simpler lifestyle. 

For instance, my budget. It went flat this month. I never considered the extra expenses for starting middle school band and chorus, and our car tax bill got lost at the bottom of the pike. Yep, it was late. 

Maybe it's me, but I find being organized an uphill battle. It's hard, but I keep trying!

Melissa S, we don’t eat chicken anymore (husband and son don’t eat meat, I’m allergic to chicken, other kid moved out), but when we did, my family preferred Costco or Sam’s Club rotisserie chicken when eating as “roast” chicken.  There are flavor enhancers injected, as you point out.  But we all have to do what we need to do to stay sane!  I’ve been buying hard-cooked eggs even though I can cook them myself.  I just have so much going on in the kitchen and haven’t gotten back to cooking the eggs and making sure they get used.  Plus the way they are packaged they last a month or more despite not having additives, which means I can put together an egg salad quickly (as long as I’ve made mayonnaise, lol).  The hard-cooked eggs are not quite double the price of raw eggs, and add about $7 per month to the food budget.  Making soy milk at home saves $60 per month, so that is a better use of my kitchen time, as is baking bread.

When we did eat chicken, I would get away with serving the chicken the first night as the main protein, and would serve a chicken noodle soup with the stock I made and some of the remaining meat.  If I were lucky, there might be enough breast for me to have for a lunch.  2 chickens never worked out, the family just wasn’t interested in eating chicken that much, so I would end up shredding all the meat of the second chicken and freezing it for soup.  They were perfectly happy with other budget meals like rice and beans or lentil soup, so it wasn’t like they were clamoring for beef or pork.

I grew up rarely eating chicken, as it wasn’t as inexpensive back then — my mom cooked it at most once a year and then we might have take out fried chicken a couple of times a year, usually at a church picnic.  Then between being vegetarian or pescatarian in my earlier adult years, I didn’t start cooking/eating it as an adult until I’d been married 20 years!  Even then, there are more vegetarian and vegan years after that.