Frugal Cooking Victory for Me!

I have been wanting to cook a whole chicken in the crockpot for a while now.  I keep putting it on my grocery list but then end up chickening out.  Ha Ha.  I really hate to touch raw meat especially poultry.  I usually buy the 3 lb. bags of frozen chicken and just throw them in the oven frozen. 

At Aldi on Friday, they had Tyson Whole Chickens.  So I bought one.  I figured if I bought it, I couldn't let myself not cook it.  I'm too frugal to buy something and never make it!

I was surprised at how easy it was!  It only took me about 10 minutes in the morning to get it prep'd and put everything in the crockpot.  I wasn't too thrilled with having to pull the neck and giblets out.  But it was super easy to just rinse it off and drop it in the crockpot.  I cut up a green pepper, onion, and 4 carrots and threw those in the crock pot as well and then put some seasoning on top. 

All together it cost me $5.28 cents.  We ate the chicken and some of the vegetables for dinner.  I was able to pull apart another 1 1/2 cups of chicken that I put in the freezer to use for a casserole on another night.  And right now the bones, meat juice that was left in the crock pot, and the left over veggies are cooking away in the crockpot to make some homemade broth.  I added an extra 3 cups of water, I'm not sure if that was too much or too little.  I guess I'll just have to see how the broth tastes.

I'm proud of myself for going out of my comfort zone and cooking a whole Chicken!  My daughters face when she saw me holding it after rinsing it off was priceless.  She had never seen what a whole chicken looks like before its cooked.

**Update - I was able to make 5 cups of chicken broth. I let it cook all night.  Then I strained out all the bones and put it in a bowl in the refrigerator all day.  In the evening, I skimmed the fat off the top and bagged it in 2 quart freezer bags with 2 1/2 cups of broth in each.  I'm excited to try using it to make soup later on this week!