Enough About Chicken Already!

Well today we butchered the last two roasters.  I'm glad to have this over with.  We're off the hook until the fall when it's time to process the turkeys.  These birds I cut up and bagged: drumsticks in one bag, thighs in another, and breasts in individual bags (b/c they were so huge).  I discovered, while cutting them up, that it is quite easy to make boneless, skinless breasts like the ones we pay top-dollar for in the store.  I do like to use chicken that is still on the bone, but it is nice to have some boneless breasts for any dishes that require you to cut it up (like stir fry, for example).  I bagged the breasts in 4 individual bags because, when cut up, one breast half would feed both of us.  Those two birds will probably yield 5-6 meals for us.... not bad.  Plus, I got to practice my skills of cutting up a whole chicken. That's something I haven't done in forever, and I originally learned in eighth grade home ec class!

The first bird served us for 3 days (plus a couple lunches of leftovers):

Day One: Roast Chicken. I roasted the chicken using this recipe from Emeril called "Perfect Roast Chicken." Let's be honest, any recipe that has you slather the bird in butter, garlic, and rosemary WILL be amazing! I didn't make the veggies that this recipe called for. I roasted asparagus with a little of the leftover garlic rosemary butter and made mashed potatoes.

Day Two: Spicy Chicken Nachos. I chopped up the remaining chicken and simmered it in the sauce I found on this Allrecipes recipe. This sauce is a keeper.  We threw the chicken on nachos when we realized we didn't have any corn tortillas in the freezer like I originally thought.

Day Three: Chicken Taco Bowl.  We had leftovers from the previous night so I made some spanish rice, then topped it with the chicken and some cheese and all the other leftover nacho fixin's (lettuce, tomato, onion, sour cream... you get the picture).

Friday night we ordered a pizza and tonight we had burgers -- that's a lot of chicken for one week!