Some Time in the Kitchen

 The cross stitch piece is far enough along that I'm certain, barring anything wild and crazy, the Blessing Sampler will be finished either Sunday or Monday . . well by the January 31 deadline so I was able to spend some time in the kitchen.

I made Sourdough Discard Pretzels. They are super easy and so good. There's a little place on the other side of Carthage and any time we go out that way, I want to stop and get a pretzel. They're good but homemade is better!

Dinner was the chili I had started a few days ago, along with a Chopped Thai-Inspired Salad.

Tuesday we bought two rotisserie chickens from Sam's Club. I had taken the meat off the bones, divided it up to use in several recipes and froze it. I also froze the two sets of bones, skin, etc. from the chickens. Today I put them both into the stock pot with simmering water, celery, onions, garlic, peppercorns and salt. That simmered pretty much all day, then I strained the broth and got 7 quarts of broth.

Can you see how rich that broth is? It looks so good. I see some chicken noodle soup in our future.  :)

From two chickens, which were $4.99 each, I made the Thai Salad today and there's enough of that left for another meal and I plan to make the following.

Meal 1: Vince had a thigh, and part of a breast. I had the other part of the breast and a wing.

Meal 2: Half a recipe of Chicken Enchiladas.

Meal 3: Broccoli, Chicken & Rice.

Meal 4: I think we'll have enough chicken left over to make Chicken & Red Lentil Soup.

We will get three meals for sure, maybe four, as well as a salad for each of us for two nights, AND 7 quarts of chicken broth from $10 of rotisserie chicken! Can't beat that, right?

I have black beans beans soaking to can tomorrow and cannellini beans that I will can without soaking first. I'm hoping to get 10 pints each from the beans but I may not. Considering I don't like black beans, it's weird that we always run out of those first. My favorite beans are cannellini so it's no surprise that those jars get emptied quickly. For anyone wondering, I've found that black beans need to be soaked in order to be tender but the cannellini beans are really mushy if soaked before being canned. The no-soaking method is not one of the "approved" methods so . . don't do it unless you're comfortable using a non-approved method.

For our meal tomorrow, we'll have leftover roast beef, rice and steamed broccoli. Way less time in the kitchen tomorrow!