The Chicken Experiment - Final Thoughts

The rest of my week wasn't quite as successful, mostly because I wasn't feeling all that great.

Tomato Soup
I used some of the stock I made to make tomato soup from a recipe I saw on Keeper of the Home. When I was originally reading the recipe I was trying to figure out what the baking soda was for. I didn't realize until I was actually making the soup that the baking soda was to neutralize the acid in the tomatoes. Since I used tomatoes that I canned myself, they had a little extra acid from the lemon juice I put in bottom of all my jars. Overall, the soup was really good but thin. I ended up reducing mine by a lot. I will definitely make this soup again but I'm only going to use about 2 cups of stock instead of 4.

Chicken & Broccoli Fettuccine Alfredo
I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Heavenly Homemakers, and found a great recipe for easy alfredo sauce. When I saw it, I had to make it. As I've said before, I LOVE TO EAT and one of my favorite things is alfredo sauce. That's not to say that you can slop alfredo sauce on anything (I once ordered the blackened cajun chicken alfredo from Red Lobster, it was horrible).

Ingredients:
half a chicken worth of picked chicken
1 batch of Heavenly Homemakers easy alfredo sauce
1/2 bag of frozen broccoli
fettuccine noodles

Make the alfredo sauce first, then throw in the chicken and frozen broccoli.
Turn the pot on medium/low, put a lid on and let everything hang out for about 15 minutes.
Cook the amount of fettuccine you feel is adequate. (I personally like more sauce and toppings than pasta so I don't make a lot but that's up to you)
You really don't have to drain the pasta, I fished mine out with tongs and threw it directly into my sauce.
Mix everything together and serve.

It's tasty, delicious and super easy.

At this point we had been eating chicken for a little over a week. I couldn't think of anything else to make and honestly I was a little tired of chicken. So I fed the rest of the chicken to the cats. I recently discovered that feeding them cat food was making them sick so I've been feed them tuna, chicken and turkey (cats are carnivores). They were quite pleased. They had been eyeing the chicken since I brought it home.

Final Thoughts
I definitely think I proved my original theory that we could eat off two chickens for a week. I actually think we could have went two weeks but I'll leave that for another experiment. It definitely takes creativity and research to try to use the same main ingredient over and over again.

I'm currently working on a bread experiment and I just ordered potassium hydroxide so I will be making liquid soap soon (SUPER EXCITED ABOUT THAT).

Until next time,
Kellan

The Chicken Experiment - Midweek Update

This past Sunday I decided to try an experiment this week, that is supposed to be the purpose of this blog. I bought two whole chickens (I did cheat a little because they were cut up but it was cheaper than buying them uncut) and wanted to see 1) how many things I could make and 2) how many days we could eat off those two chicken. It's currently Friday and we still have the meat from one chicken that hasn't been touched yet, these are the preparations I've come up with so far:

Chicken Stock

When I got home from the store the first thing I did was make stock and I did this for two reasons. The first of which being that Kitchen Basics stock, although delicious, is expensive and since the purpose of this experiment is to maximize use of the chicken I had to make the stock. The second reason is that I wanted the chicken to already be cooked because I hate having raw chicken around and I thought it would make cooking easier for the rest of this experiment. 

Making stock is actually quite easy. You need chicken, an onion, some celery and carrots. As stated before, I did cheat a little, the chicken was already cut up so I didn't have to bother with that AND I bought baby carrots in a bag from the store. I usually don't by bagged produce but it was on sale for $1 and I couldn't pass that up. I don't have one of those super big stock pots, so I put one chicken in a 5 qt. enameled cast iron dutch oven and the other in my 6 qt crockpot. Throw everything in the cooking vessel of your choosing, cover with water, put the lids on and walk away. 

The chicken that I cooked on the stove was done in about 3 or 4 hours over medium-low heat. The chicken I cooked in  the crockpot on low was done in about 12 hrs. In all honesty the crockpot stock was probably done WAY before 12 hrs but after I finished with the stove batch I went to sleep, the extra time doesn't hurt anything. Strain the liquid away from the solids and pick all the chicken off the bones and VIOLA you have stock. I've read that some people like to leave the veggies and blend it together.............I'm not that kind of girl. I think stock should be clear. *shrugg*

Chicken Salad

I LOVE CHICKEN SALAD, my grandmother makes it all the time and it's always delicious. I don't know why chicken salad is so tasty but it is. Chicken salad is stupidly easy to make, it's chicken, mayo, relish and mustard. People add other things, my grandmother usually adds onions and celery but Dj doesn't like the texture difference so I leave them out. I've heard of people adding craisins and/or grapes......too adventurous for me. 

Chicken Pot Pie

Another super easy chicken dish. Pot pie requires: 

half a large onion

2 potatoes

carrots

2 stalks of celery

4 cups of the stock

4 tbsp cornstarch

1 sheet of puff pastry 

half a chicken worth of picked chicken. 

Cut up the veggies, saute them for a little while and add the stock, reserve about 1/2 cup of stock. 

Add the chicken and simmer for about 10 minutes

Thoroughly mix the reserved stock with the cornstarch and pour into pot with other ingredients

Pour everything in an casserole dish and top with puff pastry. (I usually make designs with the puff pastry but you can just lay the sheet on top if you want)

Bake at 400 degrees for about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.  

We ate this pot pie for 3 days and I didn't make one that was very big. I still have to figure out tonight and the next few days. I'm open to suggestions. 

Until next time, 

Kellan