Roast chicken, wilted spinach with garlic, brown rice cooked in chicken stock that's been simmering for two days now.Life in the budget lane doesn't need to suffer. Safeway had nice, locally-grown chickens on sale for $.99 per pound, so I bought two. One was poached and frozen, then its carcass along with one from the freezer were used to make stock which, along with the poached chicken, will be used for soup next weekend. Bagged fresh baby spinach from Safeway, bulk brown rice from Kiva [my fav local organic grocery].
For the chicken, I made a paste of about a tablespoon of sweet butter, garlic [lots!] cayenne pepper, salt, and black pepper along with the juice from 1/2 large lime. I poked that under the skin of the breasts and legs, then brushed the whole thing with olive oil and topped it with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Roasted at 350 degrees until it was done when poked with my instant thermometer. It may sound like I use a lot of salt, but I use sea salt, which is much healthier than the boxed variety.
This chicken will provide meals for the entire week, and the carcass will hit the freezer for future stock.
Forgive the awful photo. Bad color, out of focus -- but it's too late to make another! This looks like a lot of spinach, but once it wilts down, it translates into the amount that is on my plate, above. For this, I put a light film of olive oil in the pan, toss in the spinach, sprinkle on a little salt and a lot of fresh chopped garlic, then toss over medium heat until it's nicely wilted and dark green. This only takes a few moments and seems to preserve the taste of the spinach and no doubt preserves more of the vitamins, too.
Bon appetit!
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