FB Foodie Friday - Two-for-one

How to Keep a Chicken in Your Back Pocket

Hi everyone, FB Hubby back with another FB Foodie story related to my $15 FB dinner challenge. One of the things I like to do is to cook a Sunday dinner. I didn’t really get a lot of these growing up, so maybe that is why I enjoy them so much. We often have friends ask what we are making, usually to try to get themselves invited over. Anyway, one of my favorites is a roasted chicken with roasted veggies and potatoes. I will stuff the chicken with onions, garlic, and lemons and rub the skin with a mixture of butter, olive oil, and spices. The veggies and potatoes are dropped into the bottom of the roasting pan at a certain point to cook along with the chicken. Then I make gravy at the end. It is really a great meal for the family. The amazing thing is that there is always plenty of chicken left over at the end. We pull all the remaining chicken off and now we have enough to incorporated into a second dinner. This one purchase yields two great dinners.Now what could be more FB than that, right? Well, the great thing about having made this meal, it that I found it useful to have in my back pocket when a great opportunity arises. I had never considered it until that moment came. I was in the grocery store during the week to pick something up. I always like to check out the meats section to see if there are any bargains. I was glancing at the roaster chickens (I am fond of Purdue’s roaster). So an 8 lb. (3.6 kg) roaster can run about $15.00 on a normal day. Indeed, that was the price on several of them. However, when I looked closer, several of them were on sale for $7.00. At first I thought there was a mistake, but it was true. I checked the “sell by” date, and it was still about 5 days away, so I grabbed it. When I got home, I told Shannon about the deal. Knowing that we always have plenty of chicken left over, she told me that she had a dinner she saw on Pinterest that she wanted to try and it required chicken. On Saturday we got all the remaining ingredients we needed for both dinners. With that $7.00 chicken and all the other ingredients, we spent $22, which is $11/meal, beating the $15 FB dinner challenge for two meals!So the point of this is that it is always important to have these meals in your back pocket so you can pull them out when a great opportunity arises. When you are shopping, and a great bargain appears, you will be ready to seize it and make the most of it. Now you can tell all your friends that you keep a chicken in your back pocket!Here is the recipe for the roast chicken.Here is the recipe for the gnocchi and chicken (day two recipe).