A Chicken in Every (Crock)Pot

This past Sunday at the Logan square farmers market I spoke to a number of people about cooking chicken in a crock pot. It was on my mind, because I had one on the counter at home that day.

I often feel that cooking chicken is a rather big project, not one that I’m up for on a typical work night. I solve that problem by loving leftovers!

Last Sunday I cooked a 6 pound chicken all day with a few onions, some celery, about 6 cups of water and a handful of spices.  Since then I’ve made 3 meals, each for 6 or 7 people. Not only is that a great time saver, it’s very economical.  At our retail price of $6.00 per pound the cost of the chicken was around $1.80 per serving.

The first dish was one of our easy family favorites, Lemon Caper Chicken (Combine butter, lemon juice, capers, and chicken stock. Thicken w/ cornstarch to the consistency of gravy.  Add bite sized pieces of chicken and serve over pasta.). With cooked chicken I can get the whole dish assembled in the 10 minutes that it take to cook the pasta, a great option at the end of a long day at market!

Too tired to bone the chicken on Sunday night, I just put the whole thing in a ziplock bag in the fridge.  We also strained and saved the remaining liquid (that is not to be wasted!).

On Monday Jody sautéed about 6 cups of chopped nettles and kale in a bit of olive oil with red onion, garlic, white pepper ,black pepper and salt. When the veggies were tender he added the reminding chicken broth and about half the remaining chicken, thickened the sauce with corn starch and served it over pasta. YUM!

Tuesday’s lunch was a spinach salad topped with the remaining chicken, sliced strawberries and toasted grape nuts cereal. (I was out of nuts and it needed a crunch, it really worked!)

There you have it 3 meals, 20 servings, from one chicken, with less than a half hour prep time per meal.

Eating well, deliciously and nutritiously doesn’t have to be hard, and it doesn’t have to break the bank!