One Bird, Three Ways: Part 1

This week we're putting into practice an old fashioned food plan. I'm pretty sure my grandmothers planned a week's worth of meals like this all the time, but nowadays we don't do it much. That's too bad, because it's a really cost-effective way to eat well, it forces some creativity, and it encourages using all of an animal rather than letting less popular cuts of meat go to waste.

I'm talking about using a whole bird over the course of the week.

We could be talking about any big cut of meat, but we're going with a turkey this time around — mostly because it's big, so we'll get a lot of meals out of it. If you only ever cook a whole bird (of any kind) on Thanksgiving, think about giving it a try on a regular old Sunday, and see how far you can stretch it for the rest of the week.

The first meal?

A classic Sunday dinner:

This is roast turkey, mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, stuffing with sage and celery, steamed green beans, and even some cranberry sauce. Sunday is the perfect day to make a big meal like this, especially on such a bitterly cold day. We were just hanging out around the house anyway, so having the turkey in the oven for several hours this afternoon made for a pleasant-smelling and warm house. 

After dinner, Kirk carved up the rest of the meat and also saved the bones for other meals this week. We also have leftovers of all of these side dishes, so we are looking forward to an extra-good lunch tomorrow at work! 

So far, that's two meals from this one bird — Sunday dinner and a hot lunch for Monday afternoon.

More to come!