Pretty Cluckin’ Good at Stretching a Chicken (& a budget)!!!

As many of you out there know, there’s a delicate balance between keeping in line with your family budget and still serving, healthy, nutritious food that you feel happy with, to your family.  With that being said, I’m going to devote a few blogs to share how we stretch our meat products (and in doing so, stretch our budget).  We’ll start with our Open Space Meats Whole Roaster Pasture Chicken.  https://old.mariposaranchmeats.com/

Whole Roaster

Now, please don’t let “whole chicken” keep you from reading this post.  I too was very nervous to try this cooking a whole chicken the first time…I grew up in the 80s when TV dinners and fish sticks were really popular, my parents were conscientious hippies, so they did care about what we ate, (i.e. no sugar, soda or anything overly processed), but they were not “cook it from scratch” cooks.  In fact, I’d never even seen a whole bird being cooked until my first Thanksgiving with the head cowboy’s family.  My point being, if I can learn to cook a whole chicken, so can you!!  And you’ll be so happy you did.

The Five of Us

Our family consists of me, the head cowboy and three children (1 boy -11, 1 girl – 8, 1 girl – 2).  I’ll be the first to admit that our family eats smaller portions than a lot of people, so this might not seem possible to your family, but remember the rule of thumb, your protein portion should be about the size of your palm.

Monday night I roasted the whole chicken.  Here’s the recipe I used, http://tinyurl.com/jv2mgcd

On Tuesday, I pulled all the meat off the bones and shredded a bag for Chicken Tacos and a bag for Southwest Chicken Chili.   On That night we made tacos for the grownups and bean and cheese burritos for the kids.  I froze the rest of the shredded chicken for the Southwest Chicken Chili we would have that weekend.

On Wednesday, I boiled the carcass for Chicken Broth using Danielle Walker’s recipe,  http://tinyurl.com/ht8fjp2, it usually makes about a gallon of good chicken broth.

Saturday I thawed the rest of the shredded chicken and made a hearty Southwest Chicken Chili that fed 4 grownups and 5 kids!  So all told, we made 3 meals + Broth for our family.

Making Chicken Stock

Now for our left brained friends, here’s the math…

• Online our Open Space Meats Whole Roaster Pasture Chicken is $28.45  https://old.mariposaranchmeats.com/
• We made 3 meals from this chicken. $28.45/3 = $9.48 per meal
• We have 5 people in our family, so $9.48/5 = $1.90 per person per meal (for protein).
• Chicken Broth at Wal Mart is $0.09 per oz.
• We made around 128 oz so that is another $11.52 in value.

The argument I hear most about why people can’t feed their families, healthy, all natural, organic, local food options is cost.  I hope by writing this blog and showing the math, you can see, and share, with your friends, that it if you are prudent with your food prep and cooking it can be done!  You can feed your family high quality, all natural food that you know is good for you, humanely raised and sustainable…the choice is YOURS!

Canned Chicken Stock

I’d love to hear from you now, share with me and our readers how you stretch your food and dollars!  Also, in the comment section let me know what of our other products you’d like a post on!