Stretching a Non-Rubber Chicken

Tea: Blueberry

Music: Beastie Boys, "Sabotage"

Time: Night

So how do you feed five people -- three of them teenagers -- on one non-giant chicken?

Quite well, I'm finding out. And with the economy the way it is, anything that stretches out the food budget is a good thing.

The process started last night. I took out the giblets, butterflied the bird and set aside the backbone. (I know the link says to discard it. I can't afford to discard anything, right now.) Then I peeled back the skin on the breasts and thighs, rubbed some smoked paprika on the exposed meat and put the skin back. A dusting of smoked paprika and kosher salt on the skin, and the bird went into the fridge.

But wait, there's more. I browned the backbone and the neck and put them into a pot of boiling water, to make stock. I put the liver and gizzards into another pan of water and cooked them. After a while, I took out the neck and back (while they still had some flavor in the bits of meat attached to them) and put them in a baggie with the giblets.

The neck and back meat and the giblets were part of my lunch today. I made dirty rice, using the stock to cook the grains. With a few drops of hot sauce completing the assembly, lunch was served -- and enjoyed.

For dinner, I roasted the chicken, along with some vegetables (potatoes, carrots, onions and celery) tossed in olive oil and dusted with poultry seasoning, salt and pepper. On the side, iceberg salad. Now, in the past I've regarded two pieces of chicken as a snack and three as something of a divine right. But tonight, we all made do with slices from the breasts, and nobody complained of being hungry. (My stomach is shrinking, I think.)

I boned out the rest of the chicken, saving some for Mrs. Steep's lunch tomorrow. (I did save out the flat portions and the tips of the wings. Those are going to be my lunch.) The rest of the meat will go on a salad, most likely.

Done? Not yet. I make a stock out of the bones. That will be a base for soup, using the leftover roast veggies, the cabbage in the fridge and three jalapeno bratwursts (bought on sale for 60 cents each). With any luck, there will be leftovers of that, too.

Please don't take this as bragging. Take it, if anything, as an expression of gratitude for Providence and provision, and of regret for past waste -- and a determination not to take a full belly for granted.

Tonight's scary story: Algernon Blackwood, "The Lease"