If I were to buy a whole (organic) chicken, would I be able to make enough meals to make it worth it?

[hopefully]

Looking in the supermarket today, a reasonable sized whole organic chicken is a little under a tenner ().

Since we are not millionaires, the only way to buy said chicken is to eke it out over many many meals. animal guilt means non-free-range chicken is not an option, and organic never seems to be much more than plain free range, hence the chicken choice.

So how can I do it? Anyone got a routine, like roast on a sunday, followed by cunning things like soup and stew on monday and tuesday?

Or will the chicken always remain out of reach to me?

Vaguely remember from that Channel 4 program about the difference between free range and organic is that organic chickens don't have a better life necessarily and the omega 3, is present in free range?

Am happy to be corrected....

What would you normally do? Buy a broiler chicken? Or buy chicken pieces perhaps? Because buying chicken pieces (even crappy ones) has to be the most expensive way you can possibly buy chicken and yet so many people do it.

It is lovely to have a roast, I agree. But I will sometimes buy a chicken and joint it to use for various meals. So you get 8 chicken pieces plus stock. For around a tenner that's not at all bad, I don't think.

Don't forget you can always buy a free range bird which is a bit cheaper, maybe £8 instead of £10. Even a chicken like Tesco's Willow Farm range is much better than your average broiler.

I agree about making the meat go further by filling up with potatoes and veg. It makes perfect sense and it's what people did routinely in the past. That's the origin of Yorkshire pudding, of course - eaten as a first course to take the edge of the appetite before the roast meat came out.

Sorry, just saw what you said about little price difference. You're right of course, but it all adds up so I would rarely spend the extra pound or two I must say. I think some organic food is a bit of a swizz. And I will always always go for local free-range above longer distance organic if there's a choice.

I have a 7lber to use up after the initial roast on sunday so have been reading your ideas gratefully.

I get two family meals out of one chicken. And I could make stock plus soup but I never do.