The sky isn’t falling. Just a large amount of chicken in the house. We are now getting chickens from our CSA, and I have been cooking them this weekend.
These are “Freedom Rangers”, a heritage breed of chickens, raised to free range in Amish country.
I put the little one in the crock pot last night. Spatchcocked it. After four hours on high, I took it out and harvested the breast meat and the thighs. Put the bones, plus all those lovely innards back to make chicken stock.
Saturday morning I stopped at Breezy Willow after our hike. I needed carrots, onions and celery to make soup. And to make stock.
I left the bones and the innards in the crock pot all night. With a large amount of celery, a chopped up carrot and two onions. Some herbs. Four cups of water.
I got a quart of rich stock, which is now frozen for future use. We had the thighs for dinner tonight. The chicken breast will become a salad for lunch this week. The rest of the meat, along with those soup ingredients will become soup Tuesday night for dinner.
Three or four meals from a four pound chicken. Worth the time and effort to cook it.
There are quite a few farms in the area where you can get free range chicken. They are so flavorful, you should check them out.
Sources:
Breezy Willow
Clark’s Farm
TLV Tree Farm
England Acres Farm
We are coming to the end of chicken season, so if you want to purchase any, you need to be quick about it.
Or, you could be Turkey Lurkey and make turkey stock with a Maple Lawn Turkey.
hocofood@@@
AnnieRie Unplugged 
Glad to see you getting closer to your food source.
That chicken looks AWESOME! Great post as usual!
I need to source chickens around here, once I get some room in the freezer from the cow.
I’d prefer to eat more chicken than beef, but buying a quarter chicken is vastly different than buying a quarter cow 😉
Great idea for multiple meals, and I do my soup stock overnight often. I say it’s because I’m lazy, but perhaps it’s because I am deepening the flavors?