Chicken Week, Days 3-5: I blew it.

I tried to make the chicken last a week, I really tried, but two things came around and bit me in the ass: chicken bones and a bored palate.

The bones were totally my fault - it turns out, if you boil a chicken down to a shreddable consistency, you're going to end up with teeny, tiny little bones in every bite that, because they've been floating around in hot water for hours and hours, don't crunch so much as get gooey and melt. It isn't appetizing; after day 3 (I made fried rice, sorta, pictured above, which looked much, MUCH better than it tasted), and prodded by Angela with the suggestion of dinner and a movie (a suggestion I latched onto with an inappropriate degree of force) I decided to let the experiment die.

The bored palette, well. I should've known it was going to be an issue. Angela was fine with it, but I got fed up halfway through dinner on Wednesday and made myself a sandwich. Game over, man.

I did learn a couple of things, though:

1. A whole chicken is fine to eat but a mess to boil. Next time, I'm getting a breast instead - its edibile bits-to-structuring ratio is much more acceptable, the cost isn't too much different if the breast is on sale and you make a portion of that back by not having to deal with the bones and whatnot.
   
2. Likewise, boiled chicken breast makes for amazing sandwiches, and a bunch of them - that chicken breast made 6 lunches which is better than I usually get with a pound of meat from the deli - its texture helps fill out a roll better, or something.
   
3. Shredded dark meat, if you're not going to eat it right away, gets a paste-like consistency in the fridge if you let it sit for a day or two. It's still perfectly safe to eat but the individual strands of meat start congealing. I'm big on pleasant textures and that wasn't one.

So that's it for that experiment. The next time we decide to play it cheap, I'll do some planning. Maybe.

Chicken Week, Day 2: Soup

After last night I had more rice, beans and shredded chicken than I knew how to handle. I also had a head of cabbage and an oversized block of cabot cheddar and, as the weather gets colder, an unexplainable desire for cornbread.

For something so simple, I'm really bad at cornbread - without fail I either burn it, suck the moisture out of it or leave out a basic ingredient. This time I managed to somehow forget some significant portion of the sugar. I don't know if this is true, but it's the only thing I can think of that would've left me with bread of such a building material consistency. I was lucky enough that it was only a garnish in this case.

The soup was simple:
The leftover rice and beans went into a pot with the broth from the pot to simmer. Enough shredded chicken was added to keep every spoonful meaty; some extra salt, pepper and garlic went in for flavor, and a chopped head of cabbage that was wilting in the fridge (bok choy, in this case) went in with it all for the nutrients. Enough sharp cheddar got grated over the top of the hot pot to thicken the whole thing up nicely, and it was served with a few squares of the aforementioned not-so-great-but-piping-hot cornbread.

Chicken Week, Day 1: Rice and Beans

Angela said something over the weekend that stuck with me. "I don't understand why people look down on a boiled chicken." Coming on the heels of my friend Laurie describing a chicken soup recipe that to me seemed to be more chicken than soup and similarly boiled, well. It wasn't a challenge, but I figured I might as well take it as one.

I boiled a chicken last night, and as it was merrily bubbling away an idea formed.

We buy a lot of food in any given week - I love to screw around in the kitchen and we both love to eat, but more often than not a good portion of it ends up stowed in the back of the cabinet or prepared and frozen, never to be seen again. But the chicken in the pot is a substantial amount of protein - add that to the various starches and canned stuff in the pantry and I figure I can save us a sizable chunk of change this month by not going grocery shopping this week.

What the hell. Worst-case scenario, I don't fee like eating chicken for awhile.

For reference, I boiled the chicken in water and white wine with a handful of spices (basil, sage, bay leaves, garlic, celery salt and cumin) and a few almost-but-not-quite past their prime vegetables from the fridge (two onions, two carrots and a tomato). When I pulled the chicken out of the pot and separated it out into its component parts, I ended up with:

• 1 whole chicken breast, slightly dry and shredded (most of it will go to sandwiches for lunch).
• 2 legs, 2 thighs, 2 wings, still clinging slightly to their bones.
• 8 cups half-strained stock, most of which went to the freezer.
• a whole bunch of bones, cartilage and skin.
  

The dark meat and bones went back into a pot after resting in the fridge overnight - it was going to take some work to separate the meat from the other stuff so I figured boiling the hell out of the stuff again should make it easier to work with.

Dinner for the night ended up as this:
Rice and beans with a twist. Nothing particularly fancy, but the simplicity of it belies the satisfaction it produces. It's the South Carolina-style barbecue sauce that makes it.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup white rice
• 1 cup red beans
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1 tbsp butter
  

• 2 cups shredded dark meat chicken
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1/2 tsp garlic, minced
  

Sauce:

• 1/2 cup brown mustard
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/8 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/8 cup water
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp Tabasco
• 1/2 tbsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp white pepper
• 1/4 tsp cayenne
• 1/2 tsp soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
  

• Sour Cream and cheddar cheese as garnish

The Gist:

Cook the rice with the chicken broth in one pot; boil the beans in another one with a tablespoon of butter and some salt and pepper in the water. The rice should take 30 minutes or so, and the beans (assuming you didn't soak them overnight; I didn't) should take between 45 minutes and an hour.

Meanwhile, heat some olive oil in a pan. Add the diced onion and the garlic and saute, then add the chicken. Heat through and set aside.

Combine the barbecue sauce ingredients in a small saucepan and simmer for 30 minutes or so.

Combine the three in whatever manner you see fit, top with sour cream and cheddar and serve.

This will feed 2-3, but it scales easily. It also produces a TON of leftover rice and beans; tune in tomorrow for what happens with them.