Chicken 3 Ways....by Jessica

Many of my friends don't buy whole chickens. In fact some of them seem scared to cook the whole bird and I am here to tell you - Don't be scared!

Here is how one chicken feeds us for 3 meals. First off, you've got to tackle the chicken. I thought about doing a photo tutorial of how I cut it up, but it became tedious - make a cut, wash my hands, take a pic, make a cut, wash my hands, take a pic...etc. So I'm just going to tell you that when I cut it up, it's not pretty. Just dive in and attack it and you'll get better after a few. I use kitchen shears for a lot of it if that helps anyone out. Maybe one day I'll get the kids to be the photographer for me and I'll show you step-by-step how I do it.

The bonus is after you've cut up the chicken, you have the wings and the back leftover which can be thrown into a pot of water with some carrots, celery and onions and you've got yourself some homemade chicken broth (which each of these 3 recipes called for).

Dinner # 1 consisted of the dark meat from the legs and thighs which I made into Lemony Chicken Stew with Olives and Lemons. It was a little on the tart side and we all gobbled it up.

Dinner #2 was Japanese Style One-Pot Supper (thanks Aunt Marlene!) which was labeled a "fun" dinner because everyone got to serve themselves. Basically a yummy pot of broth is made, then chicken (I used the breasts), noodles and vegetables are placed in the broth and simmered until cooked through. The noodles were a big hit, so there was chicken leftover for the next night.

Dinner #3 which was my slightly tweaked version of this Thai Chicken and Coconut Soup which I was able to use the leftover chicken from the One-Pot supper and more vegetables than the recipe calls for: water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, snow peas, red bell pepper, carrots, etc. (whatever you've got!)

*p.s. none of those pics are mine. I wish. But not.