Over the weekend, we made the best roast chicken we had all summer. (Actually, it was the only roast chicken we had all summer, it’s been too damn hot to turn on the oven.) We stuffed the cavity with fresh herbs from the garden, garlic, onion, and lemon, seasoned it liberally with salt and pepper and roasted it in on a bed of onions, carrots and turnips.  Our hungry group picked the chicken clean and devoured the veggies.

Thrifty B’s that we are, we saved the leftover scraps, frame and pan juices. This morning we put them into a big stockpot along with the odds and ends from the vegetable drawer: a slightly sad zucchini, the ends of a bag of spinach, the last few carrots, a stick of celery, half of an onion, a garlic clove. We covered it all with cold water, brought it to a boil and then turned the heat down to a slow simmer.  It’s cooking down now and later this afternoon we’ll add half a cup or so of wheat berries or barley or faro to the mix (depending on what’s in the cupboard), season with salt and pepper and have this for dinner.

Actually, whenever we have leftover bones, juices and gravies we add them to the pot (so to speak) to create another interesting, flavorful and cheap meal. Not to get too earthy crunchy or anything, but there is a kind of harmonic convergence in being a bitch on a budget, a good green queen and a true foodie.

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