Making your bird last

How much food to you waste?

  

  Being part of a CSA - I don't even know what that stands for & receiving deliveries of Boston Organics I must confess I don't love or get to eat a good amount of food before it goes bad. A friend of mine jokes about throwing away whole chickens so let's try and save some birds.  

What food requires is work and prep. 

Get your tupperware and frozen bags ready. 

Plan a solid three hours of cooking and prepping of food for the week. 

Check out the menu, pour a glass of wine and enjoy. 

Items - I haven't listed quantities & any of these ingredients can be substituted.

1. Chicken - Cook Extra. Cook it all.

2. Angle Hair Pasta - Two meal proportions per person. (1 to be frozen) 

3. Pesto - I make a large batch, use for pasta, & sandwich spread. 

4. Greens/veggies - mix in with pasta, save for sides during the week

5. Quinoa

6. Pesto - Basil, parmesan, oil, pine nuts, pressed garlic (blend)
7. Sandwich fixings.

Pesto: Two large bundles of basil, oil, parmesan, pine nuts & two gloves of garlic pressed.

Chard, Mushrooms cook or prep for meal on day 2

Making your bird last

Dinner 1. Chicken with Pasta in Pesto, side of corn (freeze a meal to have with in two weeks - I haven't frozen corn before so I can't recommend that) - Don't mind the picture - I had steak tips instead.

Dinner/Lunch 2. Chicken with Quinoa Salad - If your not the salad type you could do an easy polenta cake and mixed vegetables. Polenta comes in a roll and ease super easy to make. You can eat it cold or heated up. With the CSA I get a ton of lettuce, arugula & kale so I'd switch it up 

Dinner/Lunch/Snack 3. Pulled Chicken Sandwich - good option for three day old chicken. I also will sometime do a dip. You can do chicken salad style, mix with barbecue or buffalo sauce. You can dice the chicken or use two forks to pull it apart. Depending on how much chicken you have you could do both!

Tricks

• Meat, fish or poultry losing their shelf life? Marinate it in any dressing, oil mixed with fresh or dried herbs. This will give you a couple more days if you need the extra time.
• Don't make the pulled chicken sandwich with mayo if you intend to leave it to eat till later in the week. Just separate the chicken and add mayo a day before you intend to eat. If you are adding buffalo or bbq sauce you can do on first day of prep if you want the meat to be full saturated in the flavor.
• Even if I don't know what I am going to cook the first thing I do when I start a meal is boil water. It takes about 10-15 mins for water to boil so it's gives you time to scour your fridge and cabinets for hidden items.