And we're off! to the finish line of meals from those two roasted chickens. For readers just now joining this wild ride, we have spent the past several posts seeing just how many meals two chickens can provide a family of eight. Amount of food and number of meals will change for families of other sizes.

Meals #4 & #5 were, drumroll please, Fried Brown Rice and Chicken and Rice Pilaf. In all fairness, the Rice Pilaf was a side dish and only had the chicken broth in it, not any of the actual meat, but it did make a large enough amount that it could have served as the main course. The only addition needed to bump this dish up to main course standing would have been some beans. Red beans would have been very nice. Beans and Rice together form a complete and inexpensive protein for those times when meat isn't available or desired. Of course, then it would no longer be Rice Pilaf but Red Beans and Rice. Since Red Beans and Rice always need some cooked bacon crumbled up in it, (I think it does anyway) we could have added the leftover bacon from breakfast. MMm, I'm getting hungry now.

Fried Brown Rice - recipe to come at later date. Not of This World made this dish, and she isn't here to share how. I do know that the amount of chicken in the dish was generous. If meat needed stretching, the amount used could easily have been reduced to half leaving some for another dish. Please know that I enjoyed the amount Not of This World used tremendously. I wouldn't have wanted it to contain less meat. Sometimes, though, ingredients need to be stretched leaving what we would prefer aside for a time.

Oh yes, the Rice used in the Rice Pilaf was leftover from the previous meal of Fried Rice and Chicken. Believe me, I appreciated the convenience precooked rice provided when a quick lunch was needed today. The remaining chicken broth, leftover rice, a small onion chopped fine, 1/2 celery stalk chopped fine, 1/4 grated carrot, and garlic powder joined together to form a delicious Rice Pilaf to accompany our steaks. Since this dish was prepared using precooked and leftover ingredients, exact measurements aren't available to share.  Our family did think of some fun variations to try someday. Here they are: Instead of using chicken broth, combine the precooked rice with a cheese sauce. Broccoli was also mentioned as a possible addition. Ham would be tasty with a cheese sauce.

Abundance hopes that the posts on how many meals two roasted chickens can provide has been enjoyable to you. We had a lot of fun cooking and eating the results. There is a little disclosure we would like to make however. While all of the dishes and foods made here at Abundance during our little chicken experiment were tasty to the majority of our family, not all of us were as thrilled as most of us were. That being said, a few of the meals saw My Beloved eating different meals than the rest of us. This only added to our meal-stretching experiment as the meals that My Beloved ate provided the ideal way to use up small amounts of ingredients that weren't enough for the entire family. Even though a few meals were spent eating different foods, we were still eating together as a family, and we were wasting less food. Experiment chicken was an absolute success. As a matter of fact, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to realize later on that there were other meals/dishes I forgot to include.

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