Cooking for two.
It’s Sunday, in March, and I’m cooking a 1.7kg medium(!) chicken from Waitrose.
Why on earth would you do that? So much for trying to be carbon neutral!
Actually, we’re going to get four meals out of this chicken. And that’s excluding the stock, which I will use for a soup tonight and pie later in the week. Wednesday is pie night, where possible…
Doing the chicken in the microwave takes 45 minutes. I do the potatoes, courgettes, broccoli, and some peppers in too. Quick and tasty.
Gravy is delivered from the left over vegetable water from boiled carrots, leaks, and baby sweetcorn. I heat the plates on top of the microwave.
We eat about a quarter of the chicken in this sitting.
I then make chicken stock in the microwave from some saved vegetables, garlic, and most of the carcass. A 1.7kg bird should give me about 500ml of stock in two sittings.
Tonight, a soup with some fresh baked bread will use half the stock. Tonight I’m doing celery and stilton and one of us should have a serving of celery soup tomorrow for lunch.
Tomorrow will be chicken rissotto, from the one of the left over breasts. Sandwiches will come from the other breast and the stuffing – a little recurrent sauce and that is one tasty home sandwich for not many carbs.
Tuesday is quorn chilli night (on a roast chicken weekend). Or potatoes gratin. Or pasta arrabiata. Or vegetable fahitas. Something meat free.
Wednesday is pie night, what-ever the roast, the left overs are done with some onions, potatoes, carrots, garlic, stock, and other boiled green veg. I typically use up the store bought puff pastry with some frozen fruit and ice-cream. It’s delicious and stops us throwing the pastry or wasting the heat from the oven.
Thursday is potato gratin.
Friday is all about the soup, or quiche or pasta, or stir fry. A little something for the weekend.
How do you make the plan stick? I forget the plan half way through the week as the stresses and rush sets in…
Me too. We never got our shit together like this before, but I started something new a couple of week’s ago.
A shared calendar (such as Google) works great for this – we started doing this for our Sunday rota and last week I had the idea for doing it for the week too. (It helps stop repetitive meals too).
The really odd thing is, doing this on a Sunday while cooking resets your expectations. How much left-overs are you expecting? If it’s elaborate, what’s happening work-wise which will act as a distraction? For next week, I’m on version three of the plan, but it looks good now.
That sanity check is vital. But it’s odd how writing something down and communicating it will make it happen.
Posted: March 16th, 2025 under 42, Driving off the grid.