August Sunday Roasted Chicken

Rather cool for August. Yesterday's farmers market was really chilly. Lots of customers, though and we had a lot of tomatoes, musk melon, specialty breads, my plain soap (which all of a sudden has quite a few followers) and eggs. Even sold some of my handmade knitted handwarmers/computer mitts, knitted dish cloths/washcloths! One lady wanted the socks I was knitting for my granddaughter, but was finally persuaded to let me make her a duplicate pair in a few months!

Today, I made 6 lbs. of noodles for a lady who wants to stock her freezer, so while I was doing that, I was also roasting a chicken. I do that a lot on Sundays. If you have cooked chicken, you have the beginnings of three meals over the course of one week! Tonight, I will fix jambalaya rice to go with slices of the chicken breast. Then I will pick the chicken meat from the bone after supper and divide into two parts. Put each part in a small plastic bag or refrigerator container. One night you will have chicken and noodles and another night you can have chicken pot pie or shepherd's pie. I buy my chickens whole. Already-cut pieces are bony and they don't give you the pieces that you will need to save to make stock. It is easy to learn to cut up a chicken. A good cookbook will guide you and soon you will be able to cut it up in 2.5 minutes flat (unless you can beat me on that one!). Don't throw your cooked or uncooked chicken pieces away--stock recipe follows.

Also, another use for those ubiquitous plastic shopping bags to save a bunch of mess and bacteria in your kitchen--put the plastic wrapped thawed chicken inside the bag. Reach inside the bag with your scissors and cut the chicken wrapping so that you can pull out the chicken, leaving blood, water, etc. in the bag. Gather up the top of the bag and throw away! No mess. Do not discard the gizzard or the neck--you can use that to put in your stock (keep a bag in the freezer to keep your chicken bones -- cooked and uncooked, celery ends and leaves, pieces of onion and garlic, etc. for stock, recipe follows). The making of stock is easy, economical, adds tons of flavors, but seems to be a lost art. But it is making a comeback as we re-learn how not to waste.

Chicken Stock Put your saved cooked or raw chicken parts in a very large pot (mine is a 20 quart with lid). (Can use a whole chicken and pick the meat off when done and freeze the meat). Add leftover celery (I freeze the ends and leaves for this ), 4 or 5 cloves of garlic (don't have the peel, just cut through the center--all this stuff will be strained out anyway), a couple of onions cut through (do not throw away the skins if they are yellow onions--the skins make a lovely color for the stock), 6 or 7 peppercorns, a few old carrots cut up, few tablespoons of salt. Add water enough to cover all the ingredients. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down until it barely breaks bubbles on the surface. Simmer, covered, for 4-6 hours and take off the stove. Let cool slightly. Place a large colander over a basin and pour your stock into it to strain. Then take the strained stock and put it into freezer containers for the freezer. I have 1/2 gallon recycled cottage cheese containers that work well since you will need at least that for a batch of soup. Once thawed, stock will not last more than a few days, so use quickly.

More chores waiting.