Quality food need not cost an arm and a leg and the humble (yet dynamic) chicken is a low cost and yet also healthy option.  There’s so much you can do with a chicken.  A quick Google search on chicken recipes will turn up endless possibilities.

Pick up a bird cheap on the last day of sale.  You’ll find that some supermarkets will reduce a large chicken down to £2-3, sometimes even less if you are lucky.

Pop your bargain bird into the oven and have a lovely slap up roast with a chilled bottle of wine.  There’s nothing to beat it.  Then, with the breast meat that’s left over, save it to one side and have some chicken BLT sandwiches for lunch the next day.  Legs, thighs and other meat can be used to make a lovely chicken curry the next evening.

Don’t throw that carcass away!  Put it in a large pot of water and reduce it for an hour or two to make a lovely chicken stock.  You’ll actually find there’s still a fair amount of meat left and this all goes into the soup recipe (see below).

Chicken, leek and potato soup

Makes approximately 4-6 servings

Ingredients

• 2 ½ pints of chicken stock
• 4 leeks
• 4 small potatoes
• 3 carrots
• 1 small onion
• ¼ cup of butter
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• ½ cup of plain flour
• 1 small clove of garlic
• ½ tsp thyme
• salt & pepper to taste
• ½ cup of single cream (optional)

Method

In a large saucepan heat up the olive oil and melt the butter.  Add the onion and garlic (both finely chopped), then the leeks sliced roughly.  Add salt, pepper and herbs then sauté the leeks and onion for about 2-3 minutes until soft.

Very gradually add the flour and evenly coat the onions and leeks continually stirring so that the mixture does not stick.

Add the chicken stock, carrots and potatoes.  sometimes I also add an extra stock cube at this point but it depends really on how rich your stock is to begin with.

Bring to the boil and then simmer for about 30 mins or until all the vegetables are cooked.

If you like a nice creamy chicken soup, add the single cream about 5 to 10 minites from the end.