Tuesday's Supper

Today's meal is sort of put together with two things in mind. Last week I mentioned that I was going to see how many meals I could make with two free range chickens as well as how can I be as budget minded with both my time and my resources.

Soooo let me tell you what I was able to do. I cooked the two chickens in the oven and also cooked roasted vegetables at the same time. Obviously the vegetables didn't take as long as the chickens, so I cooked them towards the end of the chicken cooking time. That was one meal. The second meal I made from the More with Less Cookbook. I made a chicken loaf, mashed potatoes, peas and the best gravy I have ever made. I used the drippings from the cooked chicken.

Now let's get to our Tuesday's Supper! This third meal was Chicken Pot Pie and sliced apples and left over muffins. I was really dragging my heals about this pot pie, because I don't like to make crust! Truthfully, I'm terrible at it! So I went looking and hunting and came up with a really forgiving recipe! I found it at Thy Hand Hath Provided. She has an awesome blog, and if you haven't checked it out, your probably should! She has a ton of recipes. Anyway, she has a pie crust recipe that makes eleven pies! Atleast it makes eleven pies for her! I made six crusts and then cinnamon sticks from two of the crusts. Like I said, crusts are not my thing. They may be more my thing now, because of her recipe!

So to begin with I made crust.
7 cups white flour
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup coconut oil (you can use shortening if you like)
1 1/2 cups butter
2 T sugar
4 t salt
2 T vinegar
2 eggs
1 cup water ( I had to add more)

mix it all together and roll it out! Then place in your pie pans. You can then put them in grocery store bags and freeze them. I stacked them with wax paper in bags of two's. My son Jonathan helped with some rolling. (that way I knew where he was!)




For the Chicken Pot Pie, I used 2 1/2 cups of cut up chicken, leftover roasted vegetables, leftover gravy and put it in the crust. Topped it with another crust and it was finished!!! I kept it in the fridge until it was time to cook dinner. Since dinner was done, I moved onto another job I had been putting off.

During the winter, we were buying 40 pound boxes of Pink Lady Apples. They were wonderful, but we finally began to get tired of them and just left them in the basement. I can't let all that goodness go to waste! I got out my handy dandy peeler, corer apple slicer that I got at the thrift store for $1.99 and went to town. I filled up a whole crock pot full of sliced apples and set them to cooking. When they were done I added one cup of raw sugar and some cinnamon to it and used my little stick mixer and mixed it all up to mush. Canned it in clean jars and voila, I had canned applesauce!


So my two chickens have given my family three full meals, some lunches and inspired me to make crusts and then move onto applesauce. That's a lot of goodness! I also got 4 quarts of delicious rich broth and 1 1/2 cups more chopped chicken that will be used for a Brown rice, lentil and chicken casserole.



This was our meal and it was yummy. The roasted vegetables added a wonderful flavor. I was especially happy, because I was able to actually overcome my fear of making pie crusts!

While making this meal out of "leftovers" I was thinking how as wives and mother's we are always trying to make more with less and stretching what we have to be good stewards of what God has provided. Here are a few verses that although slightly taken out of context make sense for what we are doing!

1 Timothy 4:4-6

"For everything God has created is good, and nothing is to be thrown away or refused if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is hallowed and consecrated by the Word of God and by prayer. If you lay all these instructions before the brethren, you will be a worthy steward and a good minister of Christ Jesus, ever nourishing your own self on the truths of the faith and of the good instruction which you have closely followed. "