Making the most of the chickens

As previously mentioned at the week end we dispatched the surplus Welsummer hens (and cockerel). Although by no means table birds, I wasn't disappointed with their weight or meat distribution.

On Sunday I cooked up the giblets for stock, once cooked my husband ate what he fancied, the rest was fed to the dog. The stock was then added to the pans I slow roasted the birds in, along with root vegetables and onions. Last night we ( 5 adults) had roast chicken. The remaining breast meat was sliced and will be sufficient for several days packed lunches for everyone. The darker meat was divided into 500g packs and put in the freezer for future meals of curry, pie etc. The leftover liquid and gravy from the roast meal along with the extra vegetables have been made into 'roast chicken and lentil' soup. The carcasses are on to boil and will make several pots of stock to freeze.
So in in all the birds have provided us with quite a few meals and I don't feel they were 'wasted'.

Now I need to find different ways of using all the eggs we are getting from the remaining hens.