Mom's Chicken and Noodles
As you may have noticed, we didn't do a Monday Menu this week. It's been a rough week. My husband's aunt passed away unexpectedly so he flew out to Indiana for the funeral.I am enjoying not looking at a menu plan before making dinners, but I am really unsure how this is effecting our budget. I might do this again next week and keep track of what we spend. I have been using up what is in the freezer and what I have canned, so my costs are a bit lower, though we have been eating out more, which is a no-no.
Our meal for tonight is my Mom's Chicken and Noodles. This is something I didn't make often until she passed away in June. I did make some changes from the way mom made it. As a child, I remember mom making it from a whole chicken in a can. It sounds strange to me now but I didn't think anything of it then. I will be using fresh chicken for mine.
One thing mom always did was homemade egg noodles to go in it. That tradition stays. Without further delay, here is her chicken and noodles.
Breaking down cost on some things is difficult with some things. I will try to get as close as possible to the correct amount.
I started with a whole chicken. Our store doesn't have many choices but I did find one that was free range with no antibiotics. The cost was a bit higher than the others but not so much that it broke me.
The whole chicken only came to $8.23, but this will be shared between two meals (the giblets are also placed in the freezer for dressing another day).
I proceeded to break down the chicken into pieces and removed the breast. The breast will be used tomorrow night for our chicken nugget and homemade mac and cheese dinner. The remainder was placed in a pot and filled with enough water to barely cover it and cooked about an hour. When done, I will strain out the broth (save this) and let the chicken cool. After it is cool, we remove the chicken from the bone and set it aside. I am going to estimate that I used about $5 for this meal from the chicken.
The next step is homemade egg noodles (recipe here). I usually toss a bit of extra flour on the noodles before letting them dry. It keeps them from sticking together and the flour thickens the broth as they cook.
The ingredients include: 1 cup flour, 1 egg, 2 tablespoons milk, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Broken down, it is $.16 for the egg, $.02 for the milk, $.12 for the flour, and less than $.01 for the salt. For a total of around $0.31 for the pasta!
Meanwhile, peel, boil and mash potatoes. We are using 1/2 of a 5 lb bag in hopes of having leftovers for another meal. We purchased the 5 lb bag last week for $2.50. To our mashed potatoes, I am adding a bit of milk and some butter. Our cost breakdown for the mashed potatoes will be $1.50.
When the pasta is almost done, add the shredded chicken and let it boil a bit. To serve, spoon mashed potatoes in your bowl and spoon over it the chicken and noodles.
To add nutrition to this, you could add vegetables or make a vegetable pasta. I think this would be good with french cut green beans. We will be eating watermelon later.
Added note: I have also made this with chicken breasts and broth. This is just the method I used today.
Enjoy!
Cost breakdown:
Chicken $5
Pasta $.31
Mashed Potatoes $1.50
TOTAL = $6.81 Amazing!!
Keep in mind that different areas have different prices, so this will give you a base of what it costs in my area.
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