3-meal Crockpot chicken

Part of living a country life, for me at least, is living frugally. For us, this means that instead of buying boneless, skinless chicken breast at around $2.99 a pound, I've been trying to buy whole chicken at around $1.00 a pound. It really depends on where I buy it. I have to be careful, because I'm on a sodium-restricted diet. I can't buy the kind of chicken that is full of "a solution," because that stuff is about 15% salt-water. Besides, it isn't very frugal to pay for salt water when you're meant to be paying for food!
You have to understand what a gross thing this is for me. Raw chicken makes me literally ill. I'm not quite as bad as my friend who can't even eat meals she cooks out of raw chicken, but the barrage of information we have about pathogens found in raw chicken, and how easily it can contaminate things in our kitchens leaves me feeling very sick. My way of dealing with this was to only purchase boneless, skinless breast of chicken and freeze it immediately. That was, if I did have to touch it, it was only to quickly transfer it to the crock pot or to a pan in a frozen state.
Enter the need to save money. We aren't being frugal just because we have a very limited income, but also because it's the right thing to do. Waste not, want not, after all. Still, I can't justify purchasing something at 3x the price just because it grosses me out. Pity, that.
In order to be able to handle the raw carcasses I place them in the sink and wash them down with cool water. I quickly remove the packet of icky innards and place it in the grocery bag to be thrown away. Ewww. Once the chicken has been rinsed thoroughly, I dry it with paper towels and then transfer it to the crock pot.
Then, I coat the chicken with a drizzle of olive oil and some spices. I like to use Mrs. Dash Garlic & Herb blend.

Place the cover on the crock pot and cook the chicken on low for 8 - 10 hours. I usually cook it overnight. You can cook it on high for 4 - 5 hours if you need to.
Remove the chicken from the crock pot very slowly - it will fall apart if you are not careful!
This is the time to clean it up and get the bones out. I used the breast meat for meal #1 - cut it carefully and crisp it up in the oven under the broiler for about 3 minutes. Serve with veggies and a salad for a yummy chicken dinner.
Remove the skin and bones from the rest of the meat. Return the skin and bones to the crock pot, fill it up with water, and cook for several more hours. This is the most delicious chicken stock ever! To save it, carefully use a slotted spoon to remove the solids from the broth. Once you've gotten them mostly out, use a cheesecloth (or paper towel) lined colander to completely strain the broth. Ladle the broth into plastic cups and freeze. Once completely frozen, quickly dip each cup into hot water and dump the frozen broth into a freezer bag. When you're ready to use, just open the bag and add the frozen broth to a saucepan. It only takes about 5 minutes or so for the broth to melt and you have the perfect base for chicken soup, broth to make yummy mashed potatoes or rice, or stock for delicious chicken gravy.
Meals 2 and 3 of my 3-Meal Crockpot Chicken are made from the rest of the deboned chicken. I usually take about half of it and make chicken fajitas. I've made chicken and pasta with the other half. This deboned meat also freezes well. You can use it to make barbeque chicken, chicken pot pie, or any other recipe calling for cooked chicken.

Natural Hair Care

Having a family goal of saving money and using more natural products has led me to some strange places, but one I'm actually enjoying is natural hair care. I have long hair, and I don't use anything on it like mousse, gel, hair spray, etc. I used to use just shampoo and conditioner, every other day. However, I suffer horribly from dry scalp and flakes. My mom-in-love suggested I go to a no-shampoo method. I had tried once before, following the curly girl method (though I'm still not too sure about the plop!). I didn't like the way my hair looked using CG. My m-i-l reassured me that this was different. I was skeptical, but I thought I'd give it a try. So here we go.

I used a mixture of baking soda in water instead of shampoo. I wet my hair as usual, and right there in the shower, mixed up about a tablespoons' worth of baking soda with the hot shower water in a cup. I slowly poured it over my head and massaged it in, then rinsed thoroughly.

After my shower, I used a spray bottle and thoroughly sprayed my hair with vinegar. I only had the regular kind, so I used that. Oh vinegar, what a tangy smell you have. Truth? It made me crave some salt-n-vinegar chips...

Anyway, I was able to use my pick to comb my hair with very little tugging, so the vinegar did the job of de-tangling well enough. It took about half an hour for the smell to dissipate, but eventually it vanished, leaving me fresh smelling hair.
Now it's a day later. This is usually my skip-it hairdo day, during which I *might* brush or pick it out, but usually just ponytail it and call it good. Today, though, my hair feels very soft and is not tangly (unusual!) so I have left it down.

(don't laugh at my admittedly laughable self-portrait skillz)

So far, so good. My head hasn't itched, which means this method hasn't made my dry scalp act up, I haven't had any yucky flakes, and my hair's not tangled. I'll let you know how this goes.

(and money-wise, you can't beat it...a tablespoons' worth of baking soda is about $0.03 worth, and even using a thorough spritzing of white vinegar is not even $0.01 worth! So 4 cents per cleansing, 15 times per month, approximately, and 12 months per year is about $7.20 per year!)