This week's menu

I haven't posted any recipes in a while, but I wanted to share what I am doing this week because I like the idea so much. My sister told me about this blog, and as I was looking through it the other day I found this post. In case you don't want to take the time to go over there, the idea is this: roast a whole chicken the first day, eat part of it, then use the rest of the cooked meat for 4 separate, different meals the rest of the week. We just finished day 3. So far, each of the recipes has been delicious, with just the right amount of leftovers (1-2 meals' worth). Here's the menu:

Marcella Hazan's lemon roasted chicken with carrots and potatoes
Chicken picadillo with rice and black beans (our favorite recipe so far--wish we had more leftovers of this EDIT: I have now made this recipe twice. I liked it MUCH better the first time when I used already-roasted chicken that I had chopped into small cubes. The recipe tells you to grind the raw chicken in a food processor and cook it with some of the other ingredients, but I recommend cooking and chopping the chicken first and then adding it in. Also, I used On the Border salsa the first time and I liked that better than the Target salsa I used the second time. It made the dish less watery.)
White chicken chili
Sesame noodles with chicken (Another edit: I've made this dish twice now. The first time, I only had enough noodles for two helpings. The second time, I doubled the noodles and now we have yummy leftovers. Also, I used Chinese noodles found in the extremely tiny Asian foods section of Wal-mart, and I think it was a lot better using these than spaghetti. This is now my favorite recipe of these 5.)
Chicken curry

The blog claims that you'll spend $26 for all the meals combined, but I can't attest to that because I just shopped for the ingredients when I bought the rest of our groceries and spent way more than $26, but I can say that so far I am 3 for 3 and that RARELY happens. Also, I like the idea of not wasting anything, and I LOVE the idea of a grocery list being made for me. I tend to make a large meal, and then we are eating on the leftovers for days, and we both get so tired of it that I end up throwing food out, which I hate. It might seem like it's kind of boring to have chicken 5 days in a row, but the recipes are so different that I haven't even noticed that it's the same protein...plus it's much better than spaghetti for the 7th time in a row. And, the meals are healthy. I might get two chickens next time, but this time I'll be using boneless/skinless breasts for the last meal. And finally, try the chicken picadillo recipe, even if you don't make all of them, and don't bother grinding the chicken--I just chopped it really small and it worked great. I posted a recipe a while back for Moroccan meatballs, which were yummy, and this recipe reminds me of that. It has raisins and cinnamon in it, which kind of takes it out of the Mexican category for me and more North African. I just made brown rice and black beans and Chad and I both mixed all 3 things together and just ate it like that. Also, I should say that when I asked Chad today if he was going to eat the leftovers, he said yes, that he had been looking forward to them all day (which made me kind of sad...I was hoping he'd say no so I could have them. Yes, we were fighting over leftovers). The post also said that you could make a stock from the bones, which I will do next time. Then, you can use that stock for the white chicken chili on day 3.

I realize this is not a revelatory concept and that people have been using one chicken, roast, etc. to stretch their food dollars for years. I was just excited about this one because each of the recipes (so far) is SO good, healthy, and fits our "eating style"--meaning, it's all stuff that both of us like, which is not an easy task if you are cooking for more than just yourself.

Tonight, I am making oatmeal cranberry scones from another budget food blog (I think this person is a vegan so I don't use her recipes as much). If they're good, I will freeze them so we can have them for quick breakfasts.

If any of you try these, let me know how you like them!