Roast Chicken and What To Do with Those Yummy Leftovers (Meals for a Week!)

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world - J.R.R. Tolkien

Welcome back to AP’s A Votre Sante (To Your Health!) blog.

OK! So you have gotten used to where to find the healthier food in your supermarket. (hint: it’s in the outer aisles)
Also, why not make a trip to your local Farmer’s Market your Saturday morning date? Farmers often have recipes to go with what’s fresh and in season.

Here’s a recipe to get us started:
Roast Chicken and What to do with those Yummy Leftovers, or, Meals for a Week!

Find a nice chicken. Free range, pesticide and antibiotic free are best for us, the gal we’re eating, and the earth.Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
I used to always rinse the chicken well, but now they say put them right in the oven and you won’t have spread any germs that may be there on your countertops. (If you wait long enough, the rules will always change!) Pat chicken dry and sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper. Use a roasting pan with low sides and sit chicken on a rack.
Put a cut in half orange or lemon inside with some salt and thyme, or leave plain, but this keeps it juicier.
Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes a pound. (If stuffed, 25 mins. per lb.) It is done when the juices from a slice where the leg meets the body run clear.
Let cool a few minutes before carving.

Save the carcass and the leftover chicken separately. Or throw the carcass into a pot of water to nearly cover it. Add an onion, a few stalks of celery, a clove or two of garlic, and one or two carrots and let simmer for 2 hours or so. Strain, (discard veggies…or compost!) return any bits of chicken to the broth and refrigerate until Meal 3.

Stuffing: Save old bread. Saute onion and celery with thyme, S&P and sausage if you like, add bread and some olive oil.

Meal 2 : Chicken and Gravy over Noodles
Save the drippings from the chicken. Add a 1/2 cup or so of water and simmer to get all the good stuff stuck to the pan. Refrigerate to allow the fat to separate or use a fat separator if you want to have gravy on day 1. Remove all but a tiny bit of fat from the gravy-makings and put in a pot on low heat. In a small bowl, for each cup of liquid, mix a Tablespoon of flour and salt and pepper to taste to liquify the flour. Slowly add a bit of the gravy to the flour mixture to warm the latter (temper it) and then add it to the liquid, bring to a simmer again, for 10 minutes to cook the flour taste out. It will thicken pretty quickly, so keep a good eye on it! You can add a bit of liquid or flour if you need to thin or thicken it.
Heat leftover chicken in the gravy and serve over hot noodles with a nice vegetable or salad.
We also like to cook an onion in olive oil, then add a finely sliced small or half of a cabbage as the onion cooks, cover and saute, stirring often, to add to the chicken, gravy and noodles.
Meal 3 : Chicken Soup
The ultimate healthy dish!
Take your broth from the fridge and discard all but a bit of fat (supposedly where the flavor is). Decide on your grain (farro, rice, noodles, barley, etc.) If you add the grain directly to the pot, it will (less so the noodles) absorb a LOT of water. Grandpa would say a layer of gelatin under the fat indicates a good soup. The more watery the soup is, the more you will want to thicken it by cooking the grain in the broth. Otherwise, cook the grain separately and add to the broth when all but done. Add a big onion, a few stalks of celery, a clove or two of garlic and a few carrots, all diced or bite size pieces (smaller for the garlic), and let simmer for about an hour. If it stays too thin, add some noodles or other quicker cooking grain. If too thick, a bit of water is fine to add. Add salt and pepper,maybe some thyme, and serve with a nice crusty bread.
Meal 4+
You can use the broth as a base for hundreds of recipes with different spices in them. More on that later??
XOX,
AP