Roasted Chicken Experiment

I read a few cooking blogs like this one and this one. The second one featured this post about how to eat for a whole week on a roasted chicken. In the interest of trimming our food budget (which I am failing miserably at so far) I decided to try it. I was terrified. The scene from Christmas Vacation just kept running through my head (you know, where he cuts into the beautiful turkey and it deflates with a puff of smoke).

Here are my thoughts on the roasted chicken experiment:

1. It is SO worth it! I don't know if I'll ever just buy chicken breasts again. They cost twice as much and only make 1 meal. The chicken I bought was less than $5.00 and it made 4 dinner meals plus left overs for lunch.

2. Why was I scared? What could be easier than spending a few minutes preparing the bird and then sticking it in the over for a couple of hours?

3. I would say that it did not significantly decrease our food budget for the week. Either we already spend too frugally for it to make a difference, or the food we buy for lunches is way to expensive.

Here's what we ate for the week (I guess that's presumptuous of me to assume that you care, but I'm going to tell you anyway because I was very proud of my developing home-maker skills):
1. Roasted chicken and veggies (using the lemon recipe in the blog post above)- DELICIOUS
2. White Chicken Chili (also featured in the blog post above and very tasty, especially the next day)
3. Homemade Pesto Chicken Pizza (probably my favorite of the "leftover" meals...spinach, artichokes, tomatoes, yum)
4. Chicken Enchiladas (I followed this recipe but I used canned sauce and was not overly impressed. I also did not realize how much work they are, no wonder my mom hardly ever made them!)

And, because I know what's really important- the pictures:

Who wouldn't want a bite of that?!

Even Andy was excited, putting his photography skills to work. Mmm!