We had a canned chicken for dinner tonight. I've been planing to store enough meats to have one meat meal a day for a year +/-. So I had the wife start buying canned chickens along with the roast beef/tuna/ham/ etc.But before she bought more than a half dozen or so I thought we might try them to see if they were food or boat anchors. It was good, but a little small. It baked up fine and my 12 year old loved it. I think it would go better as chicken and noodles vice baked chicken. I thought it had too much salt but the gravy which was made from some drippings were just right with the mashed potatos.

I've gotten the family into the food critic game with the storage foods. We eat them and they decide what they like best, we refine the menu and all are happy and content with the idea of eating stored food. If we need to they will make the transition easily cause they've eaten and accepted the stuff. Now the quick and dirty, one canned chicken will feed 4 marginally. It is way salty but makes great gravy for stuffing, spuds etc. They run about 3.50 each and will store for at least a year. They are pretty ugly to look at but are very tasty.

nine

-- nine (nine_fingers@hotmail.com), November 23, 1998

Answers

Where did you buy those chickens? I've been looking everywhere for them.

-- Henny (Henny@pecked.com), November 23, 1998.

I've seen them in the store near the Spam and other canned meats. We have had Cream of Chicken soup on rice and Vegtable Beef soup on rice both not bad. Stew on rice is pretty good, too.

-- Bill (bill@microsoft.com), November 23, 1998.

One thing to seriously consider when trying out the kinds of foods that you will be storing is - how will you cook them? In the worst case, if there is no electricity or gas, how will you cook the stuff? Whatever option you go with, might be worth trying out as well...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), November 23, 1998.

Here's another idea. Why don't you get a pressure canner and can your own chicken. It is not hard to do, and this way you could control the amount of salt. Chicken that is canned is already cooked. So you wouldn't have to even heat it up when you eat it.

-- Louise (~~~~~@~~~~.~~~), November 23, 1998.

Home cooking w/o electricity is sort of like cooking in camp.

Out in the desert we kept finding campgrounds where there was no firewood. Anywhere you go, though, in a dry season open fires aren't allowed in the parks. So we got a 2-burner Coleman propane stove. Works fine. Not too bulky, quiet, no fire hazard, fuel canisters readily accessible (now, any way.)

In the house, leave a window or two open. You can't smell carbon monoxide but it'll getcha anyway. If it's chilly wear a parka.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), November 23, 1998.

DON'T EAT THOSE CHICKENS!! They are my friends! (Just kidding!) The only store I've seen them at is Albertson's. If you don't have a way to heat them that's OK - they are good straight out of the can. BTW, how come they make chickens in a can but not turkeys? Well, that's good for me I guess - we turkeys have enough problems around Thanksgiving!

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble

-- Tom Turkey (turkey@thanksgiving.com), November 23, 1998.

I don't make anything from this but this is a great resource for those wishing to get much more frugal, with or without Y2K:

---------------------------

Hello All Prospective Poultry Customers:

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Today less than 10% of U.S. chicken is sold whole. Cooks everywhere have been dumbed down not to know what to do with the whole real thing. Our cookbook rectifies this abysmal ignorance. Truly we believe that these nifty thrifty recipes can help you to buy whole and save a lot. For example, by rediscovering the value of chicken broth and how to make great homemade chicken soup, the modest cost of this booklet can be recouped many times over. Plus this publication contains action pictures of our chicken pickin' team (our family), with an especially fine covergirl shot of our eldest, Kate.

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Telephone: (608) 486-2605

-- David Palm (djpalm64@yahoo.com), November 23, 1998.

You didn't answer the critical question: how many ingredients arew needed? Did you count the pot? Water? Salt?

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 23, 1998.

The Chickens that I found are from Sweet Sue. We live in Georgia I found them in our local Kroger store. They were $4.99ea. If you can get Sweet Sue products at your store ask your manager to stock these chickens. They are whole chicken in broth. They weigh about 3 pounds.

-- linda benson (lcbenson@bellsouth.net), July 10, 1999.

Nine:

I'd be the first one to say that my skills in the kitchen are rudimentary at best, but I did the same sortof experiment you did with the whole canned chicken. I cooked it on the grill, however, with a lemon-pepper spice (as I recall.) I also wanted to try the garlic instant mashed potato mix, not to mention making it with butter buds and instant milk mix. Canned peas filled out the meal.

First of all, the chicken REALLY surprised me, in that it fell off the bones in my hands...bones falling on floor. The grilled chicken with the spices I'd used tasted basically awful. The garlic instant mashed potatoes were pasty in texture, but the peas were GREAT. I'm proud? to announce that I could have fed 25 people with that meal, as after two bites everyone looked ready to spit it out. (grin)

The worst came after the bones (and uneaten parts) were thrown in the garbage. No one really mentioned a THING while they grimacingly ate dinner, but once the remains began to reek in the garbage, my roommate said, "You didn't buy MORE of those canned chickens for the stash, did you?" Um...Um..

I'm sure those with more culinary experience could have done a better job, but I'll not buy more whole canned chickens. They're a bit expensive anyway considering they're mostly bones. I have more success with chunk-chicken and chicken helper. Maybe I'll suggest a new category for folks like me on the prep forum...cooking for the complete idiot. I could have used it 20 years ago. It would have saved me from hearing, "Mom...is this chicken, beef or fish?"

-- Anita (spoonera@msn.com), July 10, 1999.