Chicken three ways

Recently at our grocery store they were practically giving away whole chickens!! Woot! So I bought three of them because I'm practical like that. 

I put them all in the freezer and just defrosted one on Sunday. I decided to make the whole chicken on Sunday night to use up throughout the week and because I was going back to work for the first time after our baby boy was born and it was going to be hard enough without having to come home and cook.

I kept the chicken simple by drizzling it with olive oil and then seasoned it with salt and pepper. I like to pour 1 cup of water in the bottom of my 9x13 glass baking dish to keep it nice and moist. I covered it with tinfoil for 1.5 hours then cooked it uncovered for about another 1/2 hr. Let the chicken rest for 20 minutes before carving and save the leftover liquid gold (aka the water you cooked the chicken in plus now the juices) along with the leftover bones in a tupperware container and refrigerate. 

To go along with our dinner I made garlic green beans, mushroom rice and corn mmmmmmm!

Here's our delicious day one dinner:

Next I combined the leftover chicken with the mushroom rice, which I had made plenty of! I cubed the chicken then added it with some of the rice and a cube of chicken stock to keep the rice from drying out and reheated it in my skillet for about 12 minutes. 

Sorry no picture it was so good I kind of accidentally totally consumed it before I thought of taking a picture. 
Update: Made a second batch tonight and added the leftover corn on the cob! So yummy!!

I did however remember the third way! Stock! I love chicken stock. I am a chicken stock freak. I have probably well over 4 gallon sized bags of stock in my freezer along with a gallon sized bag of chicken stock ice cubes. 

Step by step pic tutorial:

Boil for at least 2 hours. After you're finished you can drain and make soup right away, or freeze the liquid for soup another day! 
Or the best way (in my humble opinion) transfer the liquid to spare ice cube trays (you can pick these up pretty cheap at walmart/target) and freeze the liquid in the trays, then transfer the cubes to a ziploc bag. Great to have on hand for pretty much anything, moisten up some chicken, rice, frozen veggies, risotto you name it!