Tight-arse Thursday: Three meals from one chook.

Hi there!

What a CRAZY couple of weeks it's been! Easter, sick kids, sick me, trip away, more sick kids... The joys!

The other day I went food shopping (excitement plus, right!?) and there were BBQ roast chickens on sale for $5.99. So, I thought "Hey, I wonder how many meals I can get out of a roast chook?"

I've decided that three is the magic number. If you know how to get more, let me know.

The Shopping List:

• 1 BBQ chook - $5.99
• 3 brown onions - $3.99 a bag (7 onions)
• 6 cloves of garlic - $1.29 a bulb
• 6 carrots - $0.99 a bag
• 3 mushies - $1.00
• green beans - $2.99 500g
• 8 med potatoes - $1.99 for a 5kg bag.
• 1/4 celery - $0.50
• 1 broccoli - $1.50
• 300ml cream - $1.49
• 2 rashers of bacon - $0.50
• 1 pkt noodles - $2.49
• 1 egg - $3.49 doz
• 1/2 cup flour - $2.99 kg

That's $31.20. Plus a few things you'd probably have in the cupboard:

• Gravy mix
• Nutmeg
• Cornflour / cornstarch
• Salt
• 2 slices of bread
• Butter
• Olive oil

This lovely little list will make you the following meals to feed a fam of four:

Day 1: Roast chicken and veg
Day 2: Creamy chicken and bacon pasta
Day 3: Chicken soup with kartoffelkloesse (german potato dumplings)

Ok, the list won't actually make the meals for you (damnit!) but it will give you the bits to make those babies. To make them, you'll have to do this:

Day 1: Roast chicken and veg.
Whack a piece of baking paper into a roasting dish. Chop four potatoes in half, peel and cut an onion into quarters, and chop up four carrots however you like them. Pop into a bowl with a bit of olive oil, salt, and four cloves of garlic, skin still on. Mix it all around a bit. Dump into your roasting tray and level out a bit. Roast at around 180-200 deg for about half hour.
While this is roasting, steam your broccoli and beans.
Drain juices from your chicken and juices from the veg into a little saucepan and squeeze the roasted garlic out of the skins and into the juices. Add a bit of water. Simmer. Mix a bit of gravox or whatever you prefer to use with some cold water, add to the simmering garlicky juices and stir with a whisk until it's reached the right thickness.
Strip the breast, stuffing, drumsticks and wings off of your chook. Serve these bits with the veg and gravy. Nommy.

Day 2: Creamy chicken and bacon pasta.
Strip whatever meat you can easily get to off of your chicken.
Dice mushrooms, onion, bacon and finely chop the garlic.
Cook your noodles of choice as per packet directions.
Fry onions in a little olive oil until it starts to smell good. Add garlic, then mushrooms and bacon. Cook, stirring regularly, until bacon is a little crispy and mushroom is soft.
Drain your pasta.
Stir cream into the bacon/mushie mix, heat through and tip the lot over your noodles. Add the chicken, stir it all together. Serve with some parmesan if you want to. Baby spinach might be a nice addition too, to get some green into it.

Day 3: Chicken soup with kartoffelkloesse (this one's my favourite)
Whack your chicken carcass into a pot, add some water (cover the carcass well) and simmer for a couple of hours. Allow to cool. While that's happening, start off your dumplings. I use this recipe.
Strip the remaining chicken off of the bones, and return the meat to the broth. Make sure you've got all of the bones out. Chop an onion, the celery, and a couple of carrots, and add to your pot. Cook until veggies are soft. Finish your dumplings as per the recipe. Pop a couple of dumplings into a bowl, ladle over some soup, and serve. Mmmmmm.

So, there you have it! Three cheap, easy meals from one chook.
What would you do with your chicken?

Have an awesome weekend (Man, it's almost that time again!)

Love on ya's,

mama sof xxx

Just... Wow...

Today really should've been marked "STAY THE HELL IN BED" on my calendar. Luckily I still have the ability to laugh at myself. And now, I have this awesome blog thing, so you can laugh at me too. You lucky ducks!

So, here's a basic rundown of my day...

12:32am: On my way to bed. Went to kiss Charli goodnight - she's wet the bed. Change her, change the sheets. Put everything in the washing machine to soak with some vinegar. Wash hands and get into bed.

2:04am: Alex is awake and needs a feed. Apparently my nipples are great fun to poke. He spends about 45 minutes pointing at everything in the room, going "Ooooh!". The room is dark and he really shouldn't be able to see anything. Finally, he goes to sleep.

2:55am: Back to bed.

4:35am: Alex is awake again. Thankfully he only takes 12 minutes to go to sleep.

6:12am: Both kids are awake. Hello, sun!

I pay some bills on line, accidentally pay my Internet bill twice (awesome...) and make a doctors appointment for Alex. He swallowed a zinc-coated  nut off of Charli's new bike on Thursday. I haven't found it coming out the other end yet (I have however found various coins and buttons - really gotta watch what that kid puts in his mouth!) and he is lethargic, nauseous, wobbly and generally not great. The appointment is for 11am - plenty of time to get there, right?

10:55am: Run out the door, bundle kids into car. Forget to strap Charli in. Pull over, strap her in. Grab coffee and brekky from the Green Room (awesome place - go there. Do it.) and get to doctors at 11:08. See doctor who thinks Alex has a tummy bug and that it's all just a coincidence.

11:35am: Head to Spotlight to pick up a $20 quilt cover for Charli and nothing else. Realise that I have no change to get a trolley, and two children hanging off of me. Borrow a dollar from the lovely lady at the desk. Shop. Take Charli to the toilet twice.

1:30pm: Leave Spotlight with $20 quilt cover, $50 of fabric, a light globe for my sewing machine and two helium balloons.

1:45pm: Arrive at shopping centre. Think "I'll just stop into Big W to check out some shapewear". (Note: I love my curves that are curvy where I'm meant to be curvy. My butt, boobs and hips are pretty good for two kids later. I don't love the 'curve' that is my belly. I'm quite happy to smoosh that into oblivion.) Take various shapewear items, children and trolley into change room. Strip to knickers. Put shapewear on. Get stuck in shapewear. Perform some contortionist moves - nope, still stuck. Start to hyperventilate - what the fuck do I do. A starts crying. C is asking "mummy... Mummy... MUMMY! What ARE you doing?" Grunt and groan - I'm still stuck. Consider asking the 16year old assistant for help and scarring her for life. FINALLY manage to bend into a pretzel and remove shapewear. Get dressed. Give Alex boob. Walk out of change rooms with head held high, pretending that it really wasn't me who'd just been sounding like a moose on heat.  Trip over my own feet and headbutt the trolley handle.

2:10pm: Get a bucket of chips for the kids and I to share. End up wearing half of the sauce. Go to Foodland (the mighty South Aussies, yeah) to do food shopping. Mostly uneventful.

3:30pm: At the fruit and veg shop. Alex decides he wants a grape and pulls half of the grape display down. Help clean it up.

3:45pm: Pop in to the butchers. While I'm ordering, Charli and Alex pull the bananas out and chew on them all. Now have 14 bananas with bite marks.

4:00pm: Shopping and kids into the car. Head towards home. Stop into servo to pick up some ginger beer. Drop a bottle of it on my toe - must've hit an artery because there's blood EVERYWHERE. Turns out I was the start of the rush. Apparently my whole home town must bear witness to my unco-ordination. Clean up blood and ginger beer. Knock a heap of teabag boxes off the shelves. Lose my wallet, keys and phone in the process. After ten minutes of looking for it, think to call my phone. Find my gear. Drive home. Sit in the driveway for a while and take some deep breaths.

4:30pm: Unload shopping. Realise that I must've left half of the fabric at Spotlight because it isn't in the car. Bath kids. Feed kids. Chill out with kids. Praise Thor that the children go to bed with no fuss. Ignore the dishes, sit on the computer and start writing.

Really, I should be known as "Co-ordinated Sof, who has her head screwed on."

Yeah. X