Frugal Friday

[ecosophia]

Welcome back to Frugal Friday! This is a weekly forum post to encourage people to share tips on saving money, especially but not only by doing stuff yourself. A new post will be going up every Friday, and will remain active until the next one goes up. Contributions will be moderated, of course, and I have some simple rules to offer, which may change further as we proceed.

Rule #1:  this is a place for polite, friendly conversations about how to save money in difficult times. It's not a place to post news, views, rants, or emotional outbursts about the reasons why the times are difficult and saving money is necessary. Nor is it a place to use a money saving tip to smuggle in news, views, etc.  I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #2:  this is not a place for you to sell goods or services, period. Here again, I have a delete button and I'm not afraid to use it.

Rule #3:  please give your tip a heading that explains briefly what it's about.  Homemade Chicken Soup, Garden Containers, Cheap Attic Insulation, and Vinegar Cleans Windows are good examples of headings. That way people can find the things that are relevant for them. If you don't put a heading on your tip it will be deleted.

Rule #4: don't post anything that would amount to advocating criminal activity. Any such suggestions will not be put through.

With that said, have at it!  

***Please note that since I will be on hiatus for the first half of June, this post will remain open until Friday, June 13. I'll put through comments when I have the chance. -- JMG***

Comments

Re: Process Your Own Meat

[(Anonymous)]

Yes indeed, roasting a chicken at home is an excellent thing to do. One must know how to roast a chicken, however, and then how to cut it up and have the patience to pull all that good meat off the carcass. For some reason I lived through many decades of life with the mistaken notion that roasting a chicken was something that only "foodies" and persons such as my full-time homemaker Grandma could do, for it surely involved a complicated recipe. Nope. Live n' learn, that's my motto. I've been roasting one chicken almost weekly for several years now. It's stupendously easy and delicious.

Here's my recipe:

-wash it with water, pat it dry
-lay it in a roasting pan or glass oven dish (I use a glass casserole dish)
-turn the oven on to preheat it to 180 C

- salt and pepper to taste
- some liquid to taste-- can be lemon / orange juice / wine / a splash of vinegar for example
- some herbs - can de oregano / rosemary / sage / thyme-- that sort of thing -- and bay leaves are always good
- crushed garlic to taste
- something "umami"-- can be Worcestershire sauce / fish sauce / baslamic vnegar / soy sauce
- glorious amounts of fat!!!! Can be butter / olive oil / coconut oil / bacon drippings-- rub it all over and underneath the chicken, and push some under the skin as well

I sometimes l also toss into the baking dish: sliced apples / pears / celery /onion / parsnips / carrot / sweet potatoes-- whatever's handy that will roast up nicely with the chicken.

P.S. Sometimes the roasted chickens in the store are loss leaders— actually not so expensive. However they may be seasoned with things you wouldn't necessarily want. Plus when you roast a chicken at home then you'll have drippings with which to make homemade gravy.

Re: Process Your Own Meat

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the roast chicken outline. I had to give up raising chickens last year, but I hope to do it again eventually.

It was always satisfying to use our culled young roosters for chicken and dumplings. Nothing wasted-- even the feathers could provide nitrogen in the garden. Probably even tastier than the young roosters were the older stew hens we'd harvest towards winter when they were no longer laying many eggs.

Slaughtering one's own meat or poultry is not for the squeamish. But I firmly believe that it was a very important part of my food education.
*Ochre Harebrained Curmudgeon*