One chook three meals.

I was sent this link (thanks Ma!) and tried it out. It worked even though we started with a small, rather than a large, chook. It would also make free range chook more budget-friendly and in most cases, a whole chook is more economical than pieces are anyway. Bonus being you get better stock with the entire chook being used, rather than pieces.

The first night we had the chicken pot pie. I used the slow cooker and let it do it's thing, then took all the skin and bone/knuckles etc out. I used a slotted spoon and took out meat and veges and put in a large pie dish. Then I scooped out some of the 'stock' and thickened it. Poured the thickened stock (gravyish) onto the meat and vege then in a lattice pattern, laid out the puff pastry. Little bit of milk on top, sesame seeds (can't remember if I had them but would have if I did) then into the oven on high. That was a winner.

After dinner, the extra meat (larger pieces) into a TW container into the fridge. The remaining fine chicken pieces, veges and stock, into another container and into the fridge (this bit you could freeze if you wanted to for a few nights time). The next night rather than the skillet chicken, we had chicken & salsa salad wraps - so flat bread, heaps of salads, sour cream and some salsa, grated cheese.

The final lot of chicken/vege/stock, gets used as the base for chicken noodle soup - add crushed angel hair pasta or similar/noodles and some peas and corn kernels. Heat until just cooked, serve with crusty bread. done. three dinners, one chook.

The one thing to note is when initially doing the chicken in the slow cooker, don't add any veges that you want to keep their colour... eg I would put the chicken, onion, herbs, garlic, potato etc but only add the peas and corn/carrot finely sliced, to the pie dish itself (rather than the slow cooker) just before putting on the pastry. That way the remaining stock in dish three, the chicken noodle soup, doesn't have colourless peas and faded corn, because you add them fairly 'late' in the process overall, as well. All up one minimal effort in the slow cooker with one chook equated to roughly three night's meals. Of course you don't have to have each dinner in a row one after the other, but they are different enough that you could if you wanted to. Hope that helps. Happy cooking.