I had stated in a previous post that I have been thinking about my Grandparents a lot lately. I miss both of them tremendously and am thankful of the time I had with them. When I was younger I thought my Grandma had an amazing gift of being able to put a meal on the table in what seemed like 5 minutes flat. I am sure it took her a bit longer, but Grandma always had things 'put up'(canned) and in the freezer ready at a moments notice to become a delicious meal for all of us. I used to think Grandma had some kind of magic ability. What I never realized was that I wasn't there when she was working in the hot kitchen preparing all that delicious food. She just pulled it out of the freezer or her cupboard and viola supper is ready! As an adult, I now know it took her a little prep time and planning.
In today's world everything is instant. I admit being impatient waiting the minute for my food to warm up in the microwave. Since I have been on my 'use it up' challenge, I've been thinking of ways to make my own quick meals as well as stretch one meal into two or three. One easy way I thought of is to buy a roasted chicken at Sam's club. (or from another store or roast your own if you have time.) Here are some of the things I do with one roasted chicken:
1) Chicken salad- I pull the breast meat off and cut it into small pieces and place it on top of a romaine salad. Add a little shredded cheddar cheese and some croutons and the dressing of your choice. I save the dark meat for my husband's lunches or for leftover night.
2) Chicken broth for soups and gravies. After I pull all the meat off the bones, I boil the carcass in a pot full of water. I add a few seasonings (Italian seasoning, parsley flakes, minced onion and garlic, chives and anything else I have on hand) and some celery and carrots cut up if I have them in the fridge. I boil it for several hours and then drain it in cheese cloth. Out of this broth I can make Chicken and wild rice soup (similar to Paneras), or a regular chicken noodle soup as well as use it for a chicken gravy base. Out of one chicken carcass, I got 20 cups of broth. I freeze it in two sizes. Medium and small. The small containers thaw out pretty quickly when I need to make gravy.
3) Barbecue Chicken Pizza- use a homemade or store bought pizza crust, place BBQ sauce on the crust,add a little bit of mild cheddar and mozzarella/provolone mixed cheeses, cut the chicken breast into small strips then top with more of the two cheeses. Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. A good friend recommended this recipe and it was delicious!
How many other meals can you make with one roasted chicken? I'd love to get some more ideas!
It truly makes me happy to get more than one meal out of something. I feel like I am getting a good value for my time and my money. A few other things I do to save time and money are to buy ground meat 5lbs at a time. I make a meatloaf for dinner and while it is cooking, I will either make meatballs or hamburgers with the rest. While we are eating the meatloaf, I bake the meatballs since the oven is already hot. I pre-form our burgers and freeze them on a cookie sheet. After the burgers are completely frozen, I put them in double freezer baggies for another day. I also buy several pounds of boneless sirloin steaks or top round steaks when they are on sale. I cut all the fat off of them and cut them into portion sizes and tenderize them. I buy chicken breast and cut it in half horizontally. It makes the breast a little bit thinner to cook faster, and it stretches the chicken to get more meals out of it. I also freeze the chicken on a cookie sheet and then double freezer bag them. It makes it easy to just pull what I need out of the freezer that day and supper is as quick as Grandma used to make it.
I inherited a little bit of my want to do more with less attitude from my grandparents and my Mom. I am very blessed to have a Mom who is thrifty. Mom had once helped me pay off my new car in a very short time. She gave me a $5 a week allowance. It was very painful for a teenager at that time ( mid 1980's) but I stuck with it and all the sacrifice paid off. I owned my very own new car! Which was pretty awesome for an 18 year old. Mom taught me many different ways to economize. I still use those ideas today as well as come up with a few of my own ideas. Thanks Mom!
I can only hope that I am as good of an economical role model to my daughter as Mom was to me.
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