I am going to Mumsnet the fuck out of this chicken!

[TheCarpenter]

Place your bets now!

1.546kg chicken

2 Adults
1 Teen that eats like an adult.

I am going to try for:

Chicken Dinner
Chicken and Veg Pie
Sandwiches
Soup

Chicken and veg pie will have peas and carrots.
Sandwiches will be bits mixed with mayo and maybe sweetcorn to bulk.

Any other ideas?

I make stock by simmering the chicken bones for an hour ( with some meat still on them) with an onion, carrot, celery and a bay leaf. Then sieve it. Then I make a lovely casserole with whatever of the chicken meat leftover, carrots, tinned tomatoes, red wine, green beans or other green veg and maybe potatoes, kidney beans or chopped up sausages. Usually makes 4 servings and is delicious!

Cook your chicken in the slow cooker! I've recently started doing this and you get so much more meat off of it because it just falls apart. On low for six hours. And you get all the juice which makes the stock making even easier!

3 meals for 5 (even with two not being keen on meat) is impressive Steppe.

I won't be making stock as I'll be boiling the bones for the scraps and the stock will just be part of the soup.

Erm, won't that mean the meat will be massively overcooked? Since it's been cooked already (roasted?) it will only really need to be reheated very briefly, hence why that soup you linked to only takes 15 minutes. Am I missing something?

I'd strip the carcass completely, taking it completely apart as there will be meat on the inside as well, and start the soup off with the bones, adding the cooked meat only at the last minute, but reheating thoroughly - 5 minutes say. I strip chickens quite a bit (sounds a bit ) and have no problems stripping off every scrap of meat with my fingers - is easy.

With a 1.5kg chicken, I think sandwiches as well might be pushing it. My tip would be to portion off the meat straightaway, and bull out the pie with more veg. Leeks and mushrooms are usually nice in a chicken pie.

Okay, I'm doing the slow cooker. 4 hours on high should do us and I'm going to whack some veg in to. Going to put it up upside down as google says the breast meat will be more moist.

yeah but the soup is made from the bones, so it is 2 meals really from the meat.

Good thinking Bugrit Millennium hand and shrimp

Will do it that way. I tend to just do veggie soups and haven't attempted chicken before.

Don't forget to fashion some ornaments out of the chicken bones.

You don't want them going to waste.

I was thinking a trendy necklace!

Height of fashion from NOTHS

Worra

We are family of 4 (4 year old and 1 year old who are good eaters) and we usually get roast dinner and then pie/risotto/spicy chicken pasta, and stock from bones out of a large chicken. Sometimes the pie etc will stretch to 2 more adults bulked out with more other stuff, but we never really find enough for sandwiches too somehow.

The pie I usually do with leeks and mushrooms, this makes it quite filling, risotto with courgettes and peas, pasta with peppers and sweetcorn and spicy tomato sauce.

In the summer would do stir fry with noodles and veg, or chicken noodle soup.

Lol worra
I too am a chicken stock virgin. I have never boiled a carcass.

Btw we only have one of those meal options out of the chicken! So we only get 1 roast dinner and 1 leftover dinner from the meat, then bones for stock for a soup another time.

Right, it's going in the slow cooker. Going to ram an onion up it and whack some carrots and potatoes in, will also be scrunching tinfoil balls so it's not resting in the fat and will place upside down so the breasts are moist.

I did a chicken in the slow cooker yesterday (as well as roasting one).

Slow cooker chicken will provide:
4 children's meals (8yo and 4yo, love chicken so would eat a pretty big portion)
One meal for 2 adults & 2 children of stir fry chicken.
Soup from bones

The roast chicken was smaller and was pretty much devoured at dinner last night, but I've taken enough scraps off it to add to the soup when it is done (to make it closer to a stew than a soup), and the bones have gone in the slow cooker with the bones of the other chicken.

Frankly, it's all a bit of a faff, and I prefer to just do one meal + sandwiches, but I'm trying to prep freezer meals for the next few weeks.

don't get into making your own stock..it's just a mahoosive guilt trip

I saved chicken carcasses in the freezer, then had a massive stock making session....up to my elbows in bastard chicken bones for a whole morning

put it all into those freezer bags and into the freezer

I NEVER EVER remember to lift any out and it just sits there judging me.

I might throw it all away.

Carpenter when I slow cook a joint, I just rest it on onions that have been halved. But then that's because I hate the idea of tin foil cooking with my food (after seeing the state of my slow cooker when I steamed a foil wrapped Christmas pudding in it).

I feel a bit the same way Tonde.

I really only make stock if I am using it straight away for soup. (which isn't that often)

Tondelay,, I think it depends on your reasons for making stock in the first place. I do it whenever I have a carcass around, mainly because I find it's tastier than stock cubes ( which I am happy to use.)

It's delicious, I find it very simple (not a faff at all) and I try to use it in a special meal - a delicious soup, rather than just as a replacement for stock cubes.

I have zero-fucking time for food writers who turn their noses up at cubes. They're fine, but sometimes it's nice to have homemade stock as it feels a bit more special.

'I have zero-fucking time for food writers who turn their noses up at cubes.'

Yes to this! This is a project born of boredom. I used a veg stock cube in the carrot soup last night and it was great.

Nowt wrong with stock cubes if you actually want to taste the stock.

Otherwise, you'd probably need a shit ton of salt.

I usually cook a chicken in the slowcooker, 6 hours on low. You can get all the meat off it that way. Potatoes cooked out of liquid in the slowcooker can go wrong mash in a bag, never again and take ages. I wouldn't expect them to cook in 4 hours on high, so check with enough time to do a fix. I then make stock in the SC, strip the carcass, meat in one pile bones back in the SC, very little effort.

I made chicken stock once. I boiled the fuck out that carcass. I added veg and bay leaves and herbs. I seived and stripped the carcass. I turned it into chicken and rice soup.

I tasted it.

I added three stock cubes because it tasted like rice in water. 😕

RJ

Yeah I only make stock if I am definitely going to make soup that week, otherwise, no.

I would not expect the stock to constitute the main of the soup though, it would just be instead of water and I would add loads of other ingredients and spices etc.

Only if I can be bothered though - favourite soup here is carrot and coriander and I find you don't even need stock for it to be tasty, so it's not worth a big deal.