To Kill a Mockingchicken

Yesterday was my first time butchering a whole chicken. At first I was wondering what to do first and where to start, then it was a little odd feeling the bones cracking under the knife, but the mission was finally completed after forty minutes. Basically only cut off the thighs, wings and breast meat. Decided not to waste my time figuring out what to do with the rib cage since I was going to use it to make chicken soup anyway, so I just chopped it into half for easier storage in the freezer. Wish I had a chopper though; I imagine the job would have been easier if I was using that rather than a normal knife.

Definitely going to do more of this. At £2.99 a chicken, it's so much cheaper than buying like chicken breast/thigh/wings from the supermarkets at I-dunno-how-much-because-I-never-buy-them prices. And I can do so many things with the chicken! Just made my chicken soup just now after coming home from work... and three hours later, woohoo done! I love getting the meat off because it's already falling off the bones, and I'm keeping the meat for making sandwiches during the week (so healthy right... lol). I always like using home-cooked chicken soup for stuff that needs taste instead of those chicken stock cubes (which off course are more handy).

I love this! I can imagine enjoying a hot bowl of soup just before rushing off to work on one of those days when I just barely have enough time to change and put the make-up on after reaching home before I have to leave again. Will have some of the rest of the chicken for dinner on Monday and Tuesday, when I don't have to go to work. Haven't had a proper home-cooked meal for so long now, very satisfied and contented :)

On the work front, since yesterday I've been half a chef and half a waitress. I'm really interested and one of the new girls doesn't mind doing either cooking or waitressing, so I've been trying out the cooking. So far it's good, pretty much common sense and also cos I've seen them doing stuff for so long already. If I really want to make the full switch to a chef though, I guess I'll have to master the tossing thing they do when stir-frying the noodles. Seems like it's very essential to getting the ingredients evenly-mixed! Trying to do so with chopsticks, no matter how conscientiously, still doesn't seem to work well enough.

Now that I've been up way past my bedtime, I don't feel sleepy anymore (or maybe it's the coffee NH made just now?)... think I will start doing the work for Tuesdays' tutorial. That would be a nice change from my usual Monday night frenzied-churning sessions.