Cooking the meat for the week is a real time-saver for me.  This week I have roasted two chickens. I’ll share with you what I do and the recipes I use for the meat.  Who knew you could get so much from two chickens? I roast multiple chickens in my big roaster. Today I just roasted 2. After the chickens were done, I poured off the fat and saved it in a glass mason jar, I use chicken fat, or schmaltz, in lots of recipes. I’ll make another post to show you how to render schmaltz and use it in recipes.  When the chicken fat was poured out of the pan, and since the roaster was still hot, I went ahead and put a duck in to roast. More about that in a future post as well. Next, I pulled all the meat off the bones and packaged the meat into four meal-sized servings and stored it in the freezer. Each day that I will use chicken in the dinner meal, I take a package of chicken out of the freezer to defrost that morning. The amount of meat you get from two chickens will vary. I got enough for 4 meals for 5 people, or about 10 cups of meat. So there’s your first four meals from these two chickens. The final, fifth meal comes from the stock you make with the bones. I saved the bones and put them in the crockpot to make stock. To make chicken stock, place the roasted bones, a carrot, a handful of chopped parsley (or you can use celery), a few whole peppercorns, a halved onion and I use a 1/2 inch piece of peeled ginger root. Add 1 tablespoon of cider vinegar to encourage the bones to give up their nutrients. Let this cook all day on low. I start it out on high and once its boiling, I turn it to low.  After its cooked, strain the stock and let it cool. You can discard the veggies, though I like to eat the carrot.  Then put the stock in whatever kind of freezer containers you use and freeze it for up to 3 months. Here is a recipe using some of that roasted chicken… Shredded Chicken Wraps This isn’t really a recipe, just a method. Take your chicken out of the freezer early in the day and let it defrost.  When you are ready to make dinner, place the chicken in a large skillet with all the added ingredients, heat on low, stirring now and then until its hot. Use flour tortillas that you’ve heated in a skillet. We use the small tortillas. To the chicken add: 1 teaspoon minced garlic 2 teaspoons grapeseed oil (or whatever oil you prefer) 1-2 tablespoons homemade taco seasoning to taste For the toppings you can use: chopped cilantro minced onion shredded cheese sour cream or whatever you may like! Fill each tortilla with chicken, add toppings, enjoy! Here are a few of the other recipes I use with the roasted chicken or the broth: Burrito Bowls – brown rice seasoned with lime juice, salt and chopped cilantro with seasoned roasted chicken, black beans, shredded cheese and sour cream. Chicken Noodle Soup Coconut Milk Cumin Chicken Chicken Pot Pie Chicken Salad The two chickens cost me about $9 together.  I know that varies widely all over the nation. But for $9 I fed 5 people, 5 times. That’s 25 individual meals costing an average of .36 cents plus a few cents for added ingredients, each.  Not bad.