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 put peanuts in soto ayam too and salt chicken threads, beansprouts too.

Yes the proper recipe for the soup has nuts in the soup.
I wouldn't put whole peanuts in it, as I never ate it that way in Indonesia.

Hi all - we've had a few nominations to move this over to Classics, and we'd have to agree. It's a great thread. We'll move it over there shortly

Thanks steppemum . . . I googled Soto Ayam recipe after you originally posted about it but it looked waaaaaaay more complicated than that and I decided I couldn't be faffed! This I'll try!

It is the soup which is difficult. My recipe has about 20 spices, 15 of which are not readily available they don't sell it in Asda one of which I don't even know the English word for so I just miss it out

the chicken part is easy!

Thanks, Steppemum. I will so be making that. Think I will be talking DH into chicken this weekend. And I will share my results with all you bored shitless lovely people.

Adding the Soto Ayam to next weeks chicken recipes.

Having planned soup today. Going down well. Pie is ready to go into the oven tonight.

12 meals from 1 £3.50 chicken.

How any of us have bought a chicken for this week?

I just did, a very plump Morrisons medium one. There's 6 of us, but DS won't eat chicken unless breaded (luckily homemade is acceptable). So a roast for 4 (DD1 on sleepover tonight). Shall see how we go...

(not placemarking for more good recipes)

Saw this on facebook. Please ignore the 'guilt free' bollocks.

I reckon I could do this with the same amount of meat I used for the pie and bulk with noddles and veg.

Guilt free Salt and chilli chicken fake away .

Ingredients :

•2 chicken breasts sliced
•2 eggs
•1 chilli 2 if you like a spicy kick add 2
•1 large onion or 2 small
•1 green pepper
•Crushed clove of garlic (I used 2 as I love garlic )
•1 teaspoon of grinded coarse sea salt
•1 sachet of Smash (powdered/dried potato mix )
•Light soya sauce
•Chilli powder if you wish
•fry light

To make :
For the coating Pour the potato mix onto a plate add 1 teaspoon of salt and mixed together and chilli powder if you wish I did and found it added a slight kick .

Take your strips of chicken and dip it in a bowl of beaten eggs, before rolling it in the smash potato mixture – repeat until all the chicken is coated.

I placed the chicken on baking paper on a tray (baking paper isn't necessary ).Cook the chicken at 200° for about 20 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through .

When the chicken is nearly cooked stir fry your chopped pepper , onion , chilli and garlic in fry lite cooking spray I added a splash or 2 of soya sauce to add an extra yummy flavour . Don't over cook you're veg let them a little crunchy .

When the chicken is ready, add it to the pan with your veg mix together .

Well good MN'ers. I said it couldn't be done . . . but today. You have all proved me wrong. And I could not be happier. It gives me great pleasure to announce to you all . . . that I have my sandwiches (or another meal should I so please!)

I did me roast yesterday, made chicken and mushroom pie today and had some meat leftover which I THOUGHT I was going to use in Carpenter's soup tomorrow.

HOWEVER!! Having boiled the bones to make the stock and picked every last scrap of meat off them after boiling I actually have a full bowl of chicken bits! Perfect for soup . . . so there's still the rest of the meat, which I probs will use for sandwiches this week, but after that! The possibilities are endless!

1 chicken. 4 meals. Well impressed . . .

Well I was! Until I read this . . .

12 meals from 1 £3.50 chicken.

How the heck do you make 12?! 12 puts me to shame!

I think that is 4 meals for 3 people = 12 meals. (or maybe it was 3 meals for 4 people??)

Ohhh! Thanks steppemum that makes sense! In which case I have 20 meals! Go me! (Although 3 of my people probably only eat as much as 1 of Carpenter's

We do:

1 The complete chicken, roast, slow cooked or whatever
2 chicken bacon and leek pie , if I have remembered to buy bacon, or chicken and leek if not
3 one of: risotto with chicken and peas, tortillas with chicken - brill with children, pasta with chicken and tomato sauce, chicken supreme
4 tortellini in soup, where in fact the broth turns out a little spicer than normal, a brilliant meal if someone is feeling ill. If feeling healthy and energetic DS makes the pasta as well as the brodo.. And you need far less when home made.

That's for three adults and a badly trained dog.

On protein quantities, the Edinburgh Cookbook ( can't recall when printed but this edition given to my Ma in 1950) says 4 oz for a woman or child, 6 for a man. Let's assume that the men being cooked for are professional not manual workers ( the range if recipes would suggest that).

It puts into perspective how much we eat eg in a steakhouse.

And fajitas even more popular than tortillas.

Sorry! I meant 12 as in 4 meals for 3 people.

Interesting Themodern as I imagine in the 50's everything was more work, manual jobs and no modern conveniences to help with housework. NO wonder we're all bigger.

I'm going to try for one extra dish next week as DH and I were shattered after putting the kids to bed and had an extra panini each so we really ate enough for a risotto in the second lot of paninis.

DH is now keen to see what else we can do this with. He's thinking of trying with a gammon. Gammon and veg, sarnies, gammon & pease pudding and maybe ham and lentil soup?

I do gammon, boiled gamon use liquid as base for soup with some extra veg and gammon, thick slices of gammon and eggs, small cubed gammon with tomato sauce on pasta or risotto, some gammon rubbed with bbq sauce toasted in oven and shredded with a spoon to make faux pulled pork...

Bet you could get loads off a turkey and they are super cheap now chrimbo is over with!

4 oz is 100 g. That is my guideline for buying meat. But then I tend to bulk things with veg

TheCarpenter don't forget ham egg and chips, carbonara, ham leek & cheese sauce on pasta or jacket potatoes (add a bit of wholegrain mustard and a little white wine to the sauce), quiche lorraine...

All much higher in calories than your suggestions mind.

Ooh, I've just Mumsnetted a gammon!

On Saturday we had freshly cooked and glazed gammon with mashed potato and broccoli.

Sunday we had slices of cold ham with bubble and squeak and a fried egg.

Last night we had carbonara

Tonight we ate a ham, leek and mushroom pie.

There's enough meat left for another meal or a round of sandwiches. Plus I've got the stock, which I'll make a soup out of at some point (it's in the freezer).

Apologies if this has already been said - I did skim in places - but you can also combine with a veg box. I do this when I get bored of writing detailed shopping lists. A chicken or ham & some cheese, a veg box, some storecupboard carbs and spices, and you can eat well for a week. It's reasonably cheap too.

Buy your veg box and vaguely plan a few meals round its contents. Having HFW's veg book really helps. It gives you a stack of ideas for how to plan round veg rather than round meat.

Roast your chicken/ham/turkey (great idea Toasty) and eat roast dinners for the first day or two. Then leftover meat just gets tacked into the other veg-box-based meals. It's really easy & quick because the meat is already cooked. Do your refried bean wraps, or baked leeks or mushrooms or whatever, with a bit of ham or chicken added in. Lovely.

And if you're not eating the meat quick enough, slice and freeze in thin flat useable portions, preferably in thin gravy. Ham freezes ok dry, though I find it needs to be eaten fairly quickly afterwards.

Loving this thread carpenter specially your millenniumhandandshrimp sure you won't be able to squeeze in some CMOT (nearly) soss inna bun??

100g actually 3 1/2 oz, so 4 a touch over 100, but near enough, I agree.

Am mumsnetting a gammon now.

1 roasted with black treacle and mustard.
2 cold with veg including baked potatoes.
3 sandwiches
4 pasta with tomato sauce and gammon.
5 soup. Not sure whether to do red lentil and gammon ( yum) or ham and veg etc use chunky bits in stock.

The Edinburgh cookery book advice is excellent, eg about invalid recipes ( though some sound revolting) and cleaning. It was a cookery/ domestic sort of training school.

key point - how big was this gammon when you started?

Gammon is brilliant to do this with because it has such a distinctive flavour that you hardly need any at all to make a gammony meal.

At month end I sometimes buy those half-moon 2 for £5 gammon joints.

Half of one of those, sliced thinly with parsley sauce, mashed potatoes and veg will feed 4 of us well.
You don't get stock per se but I add water to the roasting tin and heat to get a very dark hammy liquid. It is too salty to use on its own but I 50/50 with water to make a batch of lentil soup (cook the lentils with onion and carrot in water and then thin with the salty stock), and a batch of potato and carrot soup (My youngest DDs favourite: just onions, potato and carrot sweated down and flavoured with the ham stock. These soups go in the freezer and I make enough of each for all 7 of us.
At this point we have half a mini joint left: shred half of this it makes a meaty carbonara for 4 or a skinny one (well part from the eggs and cheese) for 7.
The last slice gets minced and frozen and then used to flavour meatballs, a soup, an omelette or even mixed into egg mayonnaise for the packed lunches on another day.
About 20 meals from a £2.50 gammon joint.