Possible food for your neuts… I think so anyway.
I currently can’t sing the praises enough of home made chicken soup.
The old wives tales of it making you better seems to work for me so I thought I’d share a recipe for 3 dishes from 1 chicken that I’ve done for years.
The goodness is in the stock so anything you make that uses the stock has some of the goodness, so these 3 recipes are generally great but the roast chicken is more comform food and hey we need comfort right.
The chicken should be preferably organic or free range if not (you do get 3 meals, it’s worth it).
The roast chicken
Stick a lemon and some rosemary (garlic if you like it, I do) up a chicken. drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Roast in oven at 180 until juices run clear when you poke it with a knife.
Tip: Most decent cook shops have meat thermometers that you just stab into the thickest piece of the meat and then you just read the temperature to know that it’s cooked and safe to eat. They cost less than a fiver and you’ll never be food poisoned again. Way worth it. excellent for BBQ’s too.
Eat the breast meat with some roast vegs or green vegs, whatever suits you. We make stuffing on the side.
The Chicken and Mushroom toasts
Tear the meat of the legs of the chicken and place in a plastic box.
Later you add some stock from the next recipe, and when you want the meal you just gently fry some sliced onions and mushrooms and then thrown this left over chicken and stock into the pan, add a little cream if you like and serve on toast. Heavenly lunch.
The Stock
This is actually really easy. You do have to boil the bones though for the goodness.
Stick the carcass that’s left (leg bones and all) in a big pan, including some of fat from the roasting pan, basically just chuck it in a big pan. Add some bits for flavour eg a carrot, onion, whatever you like really. I like carrot, onion and a bay leaf. Fill up with water and simmer gently for AT LEAST and hour, any less and it’s not worth bothering.
Add peppercorns and little salt for flavour, I tend to use lots of pepper and very little salt.
Then drain off the water… keeping the broth that is, not pouring it down the sink like I once did. Chuck the remnants of the pan unless there’s some bits of chicken in there that you can be bothered to save (I usually do but understand it’s too much for some and I was bought up like Hugh Farms and eats it all).
Chill the stock as fast as possible. Ideally I do this. Simmer it for 3 hours until it’s really concentrated and then throw in some ice cubes to bring the temperature down as fast as possible, stick it in a tupperware style tub and straight into the freezer. For safety you want to chill it as fast as possible and when using to make dishes heat it to a simmering point for at least 5 mins.
Freezing it in little tubs, or even an ice cube tray makes it easy to get the right amount of stock for dishes.
The Soup
Take some of the stock, add some finely chopped veggies that you fancy eg carrots. Chuck in some finely chopped potatoes or small pasta, or noodles or the lot for some carbohydrates, simmer for 10 mins or until veggies are soft.
If the pasta is teeny (which I like) I throw it in for the last 5 mins so it doesn’t over cook.
For extra poshness add some cream for the last minute and for extra goodness try throwing in some watercress for the last minute and them blitz with a hand whisk if you fancy, don’t need to really.
The one with the watercress makes me almost jump off the sofa with the goodness I feel but that might just be hunger satisfaction 
Hope you enjoy. It seems like a lot of effort reading it back but actually it’s one evening of cooking to get a great meal and 2 lunches that each take 5 mins when you feel wiped.