Anyone who knows me knows that I am a bargain-shopper extraordinaire. Whether it be dollar store finds, deals and steals at the grocery store, clearance racks at department stores, various miscellany at yard sales, or free samples online, I literally get a high when I get a great deal (I once got a pair of really amazing denim capris with a belt for $.97 off the clearance rack at JCPenney's! Imagine the euphoria!). So it shouldn't surprise anyone that making cheap (yet delicious and healthy) meals at home would bring me equal amounts of joy!
I bought a 6-lb roasting chicken at the grocery store the other day for $1.59 a pound (roughly $9.50 total). I didn't have any hard & fast plans for the chicken at the time, but Thursday evening, I decided to roast it. I used an adaptation of Tyler Florence's Ultimate Roast Chicken (thanks Hafsa!), except that I made an herb butter instead of using olive oil & I didn't use the bacon at all. Of course, after the fact, I found this recipe on the Delish food blog & now I want to go out to buy another just so I can stop drooling...but I digress...
After Thursday's delicious dinner, I picked all of the big pieces of meat off the bones. We still had a bunch of meaty bits sticking to the bones, though, so on Friday, I decided to boil the carcass & innards (lovely, huh?) to make my famous chicken noodle soup! And it was such a huge batch that we had it for lunch today & there will be enough for lunch tomorrow, too!
And finally, there was still about 2 cups of meat left, so today, I modified this sloppy joe recipe to make chicken bbq sandwiches and they were AMAZING! I threw all of the ingredients into the crock pot on low for about 2 hours & served them with a (thrifty) side of salad with lettuce fresh from our garden! And there's still enough left for a couple of sandwiches this week! I'll include the recipe that I used below, just so I have it in my blog recipe file for future use!
3 complete meals (plus plenty of leftovers) from one chicken? That's what I call a bargain!
Chicken BBQ Sandwiches
1.5 to 2 c shredded, cooked chicken meat
2T tomato paste
2/3 c barbecue sauce (we LOVE Sweet Baby Ray's)
1/2 c ketchup
1/4 c Worcestershire sauce
1/4 c soy sauce
black pepper
Combine all ingredients in the crockpot & cook on low for 2 hours.
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4 comments:
Wow, that's amazing. Thanks for these great ideas - we might just have to use them on vacation this week.
That's great! It all sounds so tasty, too!
We are so in sync! I'm the coupon queen/deal shopper among my friends. :) I also roasted a chicken this weekend (that I got for 69 cents a pound in March!) and am using it up. Chicken salad sandwiches for dinner tonight, and chicken enchiladas later in the week. I added the carcass to my big, um, carcass bag in the freezer to make into soup when I run out of frozen stock. :)
This looks so good - I'm definitely going to be trying it soon!
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