3 meals from a $5 chicken

I just have to share my success story in the cooking AND financial realm. Last week, I bought a Tyson "whole fryer" chicken at Meijer. It was marked 50% off because it was going to expire the next day. Well, if you know anything about FDA regulations, stores have to be vigilant and very conservative when it comes to dating food. Essentially, a chicken (or any piece of meat) is not on the verge of going bad when it reaches its expiration date...it's just reached the date at which Meijer has to be careful about approaching their FDA cutoff. Does that make sense?

Anyhoo, so I bought a whole chicken for $5. I stuck it in the freezer as soon as I got home, cuz I knew I'd be cooking it in the crockpot over the period of a full day, so starting out frozen was fine, and this way, I could preserve its freshness. Then on Saturday at 10 am, I stuck the chicken in the crockpot, and added 2 celery stalks, 2 carrots, 1 chopped-up onion, some garlic salt, pepper, and 2 chicken boullion cubes. Then I poured a few cups of water over everything so I could get broth. I turned the crockpot on low and left it until 6 pm. Now here's the tricky part. When a chicken is fully cooked in a crockpot, it is so juicy and tender that it comes apart just by spearing it with a fork. You'll want to hold the chicken together as much as possible, but it's important to remove it at this point and place it on a big platter so you can glean the meat and throw away the bones and skin and icky stuff. Once your meat has been set aside, you'll need to run your broth through a strainer and into a large soup pot (I'll explain that later). When your broth is strained, go ahead and stick your soup pot in the fridge. Now, glean as much meat from your chicken as you can; be careful, the chicken is very hot, but it's easiest to take your chicken apart when it's hot. I usually get out a big storage bowl and throw the meat in there as it's gleaned. When all is said and done, I typically end up with enough shredded cooked chicken for 3 meals, and at least 4 cups of chicken broth.

Next post: I'll detail the 3 meals, which are yummy-nummy-scrumptious!