Struggle Meals... Gravy

I baked some chicken thighs in the oven yesterday. I had to use the oven in the house, because the wind has not let up for weeks. I used cumin and jalapeños for flavoring and served them with a quinoa rice blend and green beans. It was the first whole meal that I have cooked since the construction began. In the bottom of the pan was a wonderful crust of chicken fat flavored with spices. Chicken fat makes delicious gravy. The pan drippings helped me decide to do a Struggle Meal post based on gravy. 

"Gathering Up The Fragments"
This was the leftovers from the baked chicken meal. The baggie contains the coveted drippings from the bottom of the pan that will be the base for our gravy.

I deboned the chicken thighs.

I cut up the thigh meat. It was a lot of meat as you can see.

This is the leftover rice and quinoa blend that we will use as a base. 

This is a gallon bag of stock that is a by-product of veggie scraps and a chicken carcass.

I broke the frozen stock into pieces.

I returned the broken pieces that I was not going to use back to the freezer.

I used my largest skillet.

I added the bag of drippings to the pan.

I heated up the drippings. 

Added flour.

I browned the flour mixture for a few minutes.

I added the free by-product stock from my freezer.

Stirred the mixture until it was smooth.

Continued to cook it down until it reached a gravy consistency.

Added salt and pepper to taste.

Continued cooking.

Added the chicken.

I cooked it for another 5 minutes or so.

The chicken gravy is complete.

I thought about adding mushrooms, but decided that this was basically a free meal. I will explain...

In a smaller pan I heated up some butter.

Added green beans and spices.

And viola, I had a practically free meal....

Here is how I did it. The neighbors gave us the chicken thighs, green beans, butter and flour before they moved. I bought the rice quinoa blend for .01 cent from Misfits Market. So all that I have invested in this meal is the spices.

Now let's be realistic...

Chicken Thighs                            1/4 LBS      .25

Flour 5 LBS                                  1/4 Cup      .05

Spices                                                              .15

Butter                                                               .25                   These numbers never 

Brown Rice                                                      .36                    align properly!

Green Beans                                                     .54

Water or Homemade stock                              Free

                                                                         $1.60

This makes it .80 cents per meal. I could have made a lot more gravy, since I had a lot of meat and I could have frozen the leftovers or made more meals out of it, but I didn't. This gravy was very flavorful and filling. 

Making gravy makes it easy to stretch meat and is a great way to combat inflation. Making meatless gravy is even cheaper. Breakfast gravy is also easy. We use a little hamburger or turkey sausage to flavor our breakfast gravy. We pour it over toast or homemade biscuits for a hearty meal. 

Gravy makes even the blandest foods, like plain white rice, taste better. It also adds calories and nutrition to your meals. It is easily made from gathered fragments from leftovers or homemade stocks. 

I encourage you to "Gather Up Your Fragments" and make awesome stocks or meals from them. This will save you lots of money at the grocery store...

Blessings,

Mrs. Smith