This weekend, while I was at the family farm, we got to discussing the size of the chickens being slaughtered.  I personally am all about a 6-7 pound bird.  At the store I can only get 3-4 pounds birds.  I don’t find this to be enough for what I expect to do.  Christopher (Head Farm Steward) finds that many of his customers want the smaller birds and don’t know what to do with the bigger one.  My family of four can decimate a 3-4 pound bird in one sitting.  I almost never make a meal that doesn’t have left overs.  We eat them for lunch the next day, so a 3-4 pound bird leaves me without my lunch.  While Christopher and I were packing up the birds and working on a million other projects, we decided to provide his readers with a meal plan to help them learn what to do over a week with a large bird.

This weeks menu:

• Chicken Salad
• Lemon Chicken Pasta
• Chicken and Dumplings
• Spring Chicken French Salad
• Spring Orzo Soup

Grocery List:

salad	Small bag whole wheat flour
baby carrots	flour
1 C baby zuchinni	cake flour
1 C baby squash	baking powder
2 C spinach	cornstarch
½ C green beans	instant yeast
5 lemons	salad dressing
fresh basil	red pepper flakes
red onion	salt
2 onion	lemon pepper
sage leaves	pepper
1 bag carrots	herbs de provence
3 rutabaga	curry powder
2 turnip	1 lb pasta
2 parsnip	orzo
1 sweet potato	slivered almonds
chives	roasted nuts
1 bunch thyme	½ C cider vinegar
1 head garlic	olive oil
celery	mayonnaise
peas	dry white wine
green onions	honey
raisins
fruit chutney
hard apple cider
Parmesan cheese
1 Chism Heritage Farm Chicken
bacon
milk
buttermilk
heavy whipping cream
3 eggs
2 TBS butter

To begin with, we have to bake the chicken.  This is such a nice fix it and forget it thing to do.  The only problem I ever run into is getting the chicken thawed out and remembering it’s ready to bake.  The flavoring on this is simply the chicken.  These have such a nice flavor, nothing else is needed.  On this prep day, you will need to cook the chicken, make broth and start the bread.  Starter for the bread can be prepared ahead of this even.  An excellent tutorial can be found at A Bread A Day.  Ingredients on the grocery list reflect this recipe.

Easy Baked Chicken

• 1 Chism Heritage Farm Chicken
• 2-3 TBS melted butter
• salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  (Why 400? It’s a good temperature for this.  If you go 350 you will still cook the chicken, it will just take longer.)  Salt the chicken all over.  Melt butter and brush on breast and legs.  Cook until 170-175 degrees on a meat thermometer.  Brush with drippings every 15 minutes or so for a really nice skin, or forget about it and wonder why your timer is going off and find a perfectly good chicken when you pull it out.  Cook one hour for the first four pounds and add 8 minutes for each additional pound.

• 3 lb – 1 hour
• 4 lb – 1 hour
• 5 lb – 1 hour 8 minutes
• 6 lb – 1 hour 16 minutes
• 7 lb – 1 hour 24 minutes

Mostly I just wander off and once in a while smell something and go test it for temperature.  Often I put it in at 3:30 when I leave to pick my son up from school and it’s mostly done when I get home.

After roasting the bird, let it cool for 15 minutes on the counter.  If you want to trim it for immediate eating it’s ready.  For this meal plan, we will take all the meat off the bones and cube it.  By combining it with other ingredients we can make it stretch further.  Once cubed, put in a large zip lock bag and refrigerate it until ready to use.

Chicken Broth

• leftover chicken bones from cubing chicken
• 1/2 C cider vinegar
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 1 onion, quartered
• 2 sprigs thyme
• 3 cloves garlic
• salt
• pepper

Place all ingredients in a pot and cover with cold water.  Let sit for one hour.  Turn on heat and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for several hours or until you can’t stand cooking it anymore.  Let cool and put in fridge overnight.  In morning skim off fat.  Broth with be gel like consistency.

Stay tuned for….

Day 1:  Chicken Salad, great hot weather fare!

Jacquelyne Aubuchon is a guest contributor to this blog and a loving sister and aunt to the residents of Chism Heritage Farm.  You can contact her at Jacquelyne@sew4cons.com or keep up with what she is doing at City Roots and Fruits.