Category Archives: Chickens

Silly season about to grip the nation

It does not seem possible, but Christmas is almost here. Oily rag households will be busy getting jobs done before the silly season arrives and all sense and sensibility is abandoned completely. This week we look at some favourite tips from previous years to inspire creative ways to take the cost out of Christmas but […]

Chicken

Sue from Auckland writes, To save money on chicken, I buy a whole fresh chicken and cut it into pieces myself. This costs about the same as two chicken breasts, but you get all the other parts of the chicken too for other meals.  

Time saving chicken

Mel from Whakatane has this tip. “To save cooking time, you can buy a cold cooked chicken from PaknSave for about $7. Any leftovers can be frozen for use later.”

Murtelli

One of our favourite ways to cook is a whole chicken cooked in a cast iron pot. The slow cooking makes it nice and tender. We add some tinned tomatoes, onion, garlic, peppers, and whatever else is available towards the end. And we serve it with greens picked from our garden and fresh buns hot […]

Denise, Auckland.

Think differently when it comes to buying meat. When visiting a supermarket don’t look at the price of the item but how much per kg. You can pay $16.00 for sausages and $10.00 a kg for beef. Buy a piece of meat i.e. a beef bolar. From that one piece of meat you can cut […]

M.E., Auckland.

Buy fresh or frozen whole chickens on special and cut them up yourself. It is so easy, and you get 2 full chicken breasts, 2 thighs, 2 wings, 2 drumsticks and a carcass for chicken stew and dumplings. Cooking for one, a chicken can last me up to two weeks. I also get 3 servings […]

Chicken Week and more

It’s New Zealand Chicken Week so we thought we would mention a little about chickens and eggs. Well, actually, there’s no such thing as New Zealand Chicken Week that we know of so we thought we would create one – there are weeks for all sorts of things so we thought chickens should have one […]

Egg shells

A reader has asked what can be done with egg shells. We put that question to our oily rag research team and they came up with a surprisingly large number of uses and some interesting facts. An egg shell accounts for about 10% of its weight and is about 95% calcium carbonate? For years scientists […]

Sandee Bee, Auckland.

One chicken has many create uses. Firstly cooked chicken makes a superb roast, any meat left over etc is great cold for sandwiches the next day. Then use the carcass to make chicken stock. Add 6 cups of water, 2 leeks, 2 carrots, 1 bay leaf, peppercorns, celery, fresh chopped thyme and parsley, bring boil, […]