Day 65, The Costco Rotisserie Chicken, or How you can eat for a week

What's the first thing you smell as you walk towards Costco?  It's not the wagon wheel pizzas at the food court, it's the whirling rotisserie chickens that they turn out faster than you can buy them. Costco sells about 100,000 of them per day and about 90 million a year.  At $4.99, it's a loss leader for them, but for me, it's almost a week's worth of dinners.  The first dinner is cutting up the chicken and serving it with a green salad.  Next day, cut off all the usable meat and make chicken stock with all the leftovers.  If you have an Insta-pot and/or a pressure cooker this is where they shine.  In less than an hour, you will have rich chicken stock.  That stock can be the basis for a chicken pot pie, or soup or stew.
The usable leftover meat is turned into chicken salad for lunch, and then into curried chicken or chicken pot pie with lots of veggies. You can add the meat to pasta for a chicken alfredo, or chicken tacos, or fajitas. 
I realize that if you have a family of 4, you will probably just get 3 meals out of this, but Dr. C. and I can get a few more since there are only two of us. 
Making stock in your Insta-pot or pressure cooker is where these machines really prove their worth.  Here's my recipe, it's flexible, if you want to add different vegetables or no veg, you will still get 4 cups of the best chicken stock you've ever had.

Pressure Cooker Chicken Stock

You can also use a turkey carcass to make turkey stock during the holidays---make sure to break down the carcass so it fits into the pot!

1 chicken carcass, cut into pieces

1 onion, skin on, cut into quarters

3 ribs celery, coarsely chopped

3 medium carrots, coarsely chopped

3 cups water
a few peppercorns

Put all the ingredients into the pot, cook on high pressure for 40 minutes.

Leave the skin on the onion, it gives the soup flavor and color

Break up the bones as much as you can

WMF Pressure cooker---workhorse in the kitchen

                               Allow a natural pressure release, remove the top, and strain the stock.

I usually get about 4 to 5 cups of stock, depending on the moisture of the veg and amount of meat left on the chicken

Allow to cool, cover and refrigerate for up to 5 days, or freeze for up to 6 months.

A few notes, I don't salt the broth or add herbs to it, but you can do that.  I'd recommend your favorite dried herbs---thyme and/or sage are good choices.  Fresh herbs will be destroyed under pressure, so I recommend adding them in at the end of the cooking time if you want them.  
This recipe will work in an Insta-Pot (it's basically a pressure cooker) or an electric pressure cooker.  Click here for a link to The Easy Pressure Cooker Cookbook.  

It's day 65, and I'm headed into the kitchen to deal with some leftover halibut for dinner.  I hope that you all are safe, and well.