That's right: one big chicken. No, I didn't play a drinking game with it.

But how far will one big chicken go? This one arrived at our house on Saturday evening, and it sat blissfully chilling out in the fridge until Monday.

Monday morning, I boiled the chicken in water and spices and a wee bit of Knorr chicken stock. I boiled it right off the bone and kept it simmering until about 4:30 Monday afternoon, when I took the whole bird out of the water and popped it into the freezer to chill, because I'm just cruel like that.

Meanwhile, I poured a little less than half the chicken broth into another big pot. Then, I chopped carrots, leeks, onions, and garlic into the water. After that, I added four tins of chopped cooked tomatoes.

Once the chicken was cool enough, I took all the meat off the bones by hand, after which I had a cubic fuckton of chicken! I put about half of it into what was now smelling like some seriously tasty chicken soup, and I put the rest away. I also put the rest of the chicken broth away.

So we had a fantastic meal of chicken soup and 6/£1 Tesco whole wheat rolls on Monday night, and then the word came down that I didn't have to work Tuesday because my coworker needed to swap with me for Wednesday, so I was able to enact evil plans for the rest of the chicken on Tuesday.

First, I put the reserved broth back on the heat and let it come to a boil, then turned it down to simmer. I chopped celery, carrots, and leeks into the broth. I let this cook for half an hour to soften up the vegetables, and then I mixed two cups of flour with a tablespoon of baking powder and a cup of milk. Aha! Dumplings! I dropped the dough by spoonfuls into the boiling soup, added half the reserved chicken, and in ten minutes, there was delicious chicken and dumplings. So we had a fantastic meal of chicken and dumplings on Tuesday night, complete with chicken and dumplings!

But look, my dears, do you see that? It's nearly a quarter-chicken worth of reserved boiled-up-in-spicy-broth meat. Guess we'd better do something with that.

Now, it's the end of the month, which means we don't have a lot of money to spare, and both filceolaire and I will be paid either over the weekend or early next week, so I thought, "Hey, I've got this prepared puff pastry dough in the fridge, and some organic broccoli, mushrooms, the rest of the leeks, and one big yellow onion left over from all the rest of the week's cooking. I don't know what came over me, but it suddenly struck me that a quiche with chicken, broccoli, mushrooms, leeks, onions, and of course cheese would be a dandy thing to have for lunch for the rest of the week. Here's how I did it.

I chopped up the broccoli and mushrooms and onion (OK, filceolaire copped the onion) and sauteed the onions and mushrooms in butter. J grated cheese while I did this, and once the onions and mushrooms had softened up, I added first the leeks and then the broccoli. I added a little water, put a lid on the skillet, and let them steam for ten minutes. I took half a dozen eggs and beat them until they were compliant (not fluffy but light), then grated two whole nutmeg pods into the egg and mixed it with the cheese. Once the vegetables were finished cooking, I added them all together, preheated the oven to Gas Mark 6 (400°F/200°C), and pressed the prepared pastry crust into two 9x9" baking pans (I also use them for brownies and quick breads). As an aside, ordinarily I make my own pie crusts, but this was puff pastry, which I do not make, and it was on sale, so I got some to see how it would work at home. In any case, I mixed the (drained) vegetables with the cheese and egg mixture, then spooned them into their prepared crusts and popped them into the oven for 30 minutes. Because my oven is not big enough to put two 9x9" pans side by side on one rack, I had to place two racks far enough apart that they could be stacked: this meant 15 minutes and then a switch, then 15 more minutes. Once that was done, they hadn't cooked enough all the way (because of all the shuffling around no doubt), so I put them back for 10 more minutes (5 minutes on one rack, then a switch), and they look and smell perfect now.

So the moral of this story is:
If you can just get your teenager to eat quiche and soup, you can just about feed a family of three on a single chicken for a whole week!

That's Some Chicken. :-)