I’m always pleased when I can make several dishes from a single thing I purchased. It makes me fill thrifty, creative and frugal. This week a whole locally raised chicken bought at the Farmer’s Market is contributing to three dishes at my household. The first dish was a lovely rotissierre chicken that was rubbed with fresh herbs (rosemary and parsley) from my garden. It took an hour and a half to cook but after waiting and repeated basting was exceptionally juicy and delicious. Sorry I don’t have pics, my spouse decided that was so hungry that he needed to carve it before I got a picture.
Dish # 2 that the chicken is contribute to is a chicken salad that I’m make from the remaining leftover meat. Once we were done eating dinner, I stripped as much of the meat as possible off the carcass and tossed it in a container to be chopped in the food processor and mixed with toasted almonds, celery and mayonaisse. I’m looking forward to my chicken salad sandwiches on rosemary bread with fresh tomatoes both also from the Farmer’s Market. After I stripped the remaining meat off the chicken I dumped the bones, skin and other juicy bits into a pot of water and boiled it. This will result in a nice chicken stock that I’ll use in a roasted tomato, corn and red pepper chowder to be made later in the week. Many of the veggies for this chowder also came from this Saturday’s trip to the local Farmer’s Market.
After tasting the local poultry I’d be hard pressed to go back to grocery store meat. It was succulent and the flesh just looked more appealing instead of the strange yellow of the grocery store birds. However, being able to utilize every last bit of the chicken makes the $$ I spent on a locally raise bird go farther and can help me keep to a reasonable food budget even buying local.