Sunday, October 19, 2008

Rubber Chicken: Day 1

I've been a bad blogger. I have been horrible about posting lately, but I haven't been cooking much either. I've either been unmotivated, or like with my apple stuff, forgetting to take pictures to blog about it. I did make fabulous apple butter and apple pear sauce, but forgot to take pictures!

Anyway, at a forum I belong to, there was a thread a long time ago about Rubber Chicken. The idea is to make the chicken stretch to as many meals as possible. The thread was revived a few days ago and today I decided to do a Rubber Chicken challenge. The biggest part of this challenge won't be to think of a variety of ways to use the chicken, I already have ideas thanks to that thread, but to make sure my human garbage disposal boyfriend feels full at the end of the meal without needing to eat a lot of meat. With today's economy, I'm sure a lot of people can sympathize.

I didn't decide to blog about this until we were sitting down to eat, so I cheated and used boxed scalloped potatoes. If I'd planned to blog, I would have made them from scratch. Oh, well. That's not the point of this challenge.

I am also not going to post the recipe for the stuffing. It's a family favorite and although they would probably not mind me posting the recipe, I think that even in this time of sharing information and recipes, some things should still be kept in the family. I will tell you that it involves sitting over a bowl, picking white bread (preferably stuffing bread), onions, poultry seasoning, and butter.

I started off with a 6.75lb chicken. I made a mirepoix with carrots, onions, and celery flakes (yes, I know it should be real celery, but we're trying to economize and I didn't want to have to buy any of this except the bread because we eat wheat but I like white for the stuffing, and the chicken itself). I cooked it low and slow in the oven at 325°F for 3 hours. I am a person who loves the flavor the stuffing gets from being inside the chicken. If you don't stuff the chicken, it won't take as long to cook. I always cook my poultry upside down for most of the time. It makes the breast meat so moist and juicy!

Rubber Chicken Meal #1:
Roast Chicken
Stuffing
Scalloped Potatoes
Carrots
Gravy

Rubber Roast Chicken

1 6.75lb chicken
mixed herbs
tarragon
rubbed sage
savory
ground black pepper
kosher salt

  1. Remove giblets. Rinse chicken and pat dry with paper towels.
  2. Stuff with stuffing.
  3. Sprinkle herbs evenly over both sides of the chicken.
  4. In the bottom of the roasting pan, place in the mirepoix. Put the chicken on top of the mirepoix, upside down.
  5. Cover the chicken with aluminum foil.
  6. Cook for 2 hours. Remove foil and turn chicken over. Cook for remaining hour.
  7. Allow chicken to stand for a a few minutes then carve.

 

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