Chicken and Green Beans

Every couple of weeks I roast up a big, organic chicken in my Nesco roaster, and it makes six or seven dinners for us. From the chicken pictured here, I still have both legs and both thighs left. These will make two generous meals for each of us, so this chicken was well worth the money. What you see here is about a quarter of one side of the breast. Each breast side makes two meals for us.

These chickens are about six pounds when I buy them, and that seems like a lot of chicken, but we like chicken a lot, and they really go a long way. The bone broth that I make from the carcass is exceptionally rich and delicious, and there is usually about a cup of chicken bits that I take off the bones that makes a good addition to soup, or superior chicken salad!

I see that the “Friday Special” at Safeway sometimes now includes a 30-ounce cooked chicken for $5.00, regularly about $7.00 or $8.00. When they are on sale, it is about the same amount per pound that I pay, but we’re a bit leery of the meat sitting out under lights for an indeterminate amount of time. These precooked chickens are about one-third the size of the ones that I roast, so would disappear in a shorter amount of time. This is probably a good thing, as sometimes I forget what I have in the freezer. I should keep a list.

But looking back on the photo of this meal – oh, my – I can’t wait to dig out another packet of meat from this chicken for tomorrow night’s dinner. We finished up the cornbread at lunch today, so I’ll need to make another one for the upcoming chicken dinner.

Advertisement