Chick-a-roni, Tchaikovsky and Men in Jeans

When I was growing up in the 50's and 60's, groceries were a lot less expensive than they are now.  My Mother could feed a family of 5 with 3 growing boys for $50 a week.  Oh that I could feed Will and I for that now, lol.  Anyway, one of the staples in our diet was chick-a-roni, basically boiled chicken and macaroni.  I have refined the recipe over the years and I happened to make it for dinner last night, so I thought I would share the refined recipe with you guys today.  This is not a quick meal, but basically a home made chicken helper sort of thing.  I usually do this in stages on one of my days off like yesterday. I start with a family pack of 8 or 10 chicken thighs although you can do this with a whole chicken cut up or just chicken breasts if you are a white meat only type of guy.  I take the chicken and put it in a stew pot, actually, I don't have a stew pot big enough for all the chicken without it boiling over, so I divide it between my two biggest pots, half the chicken in each.  I cover the chicken with water add a little salt and and a healthy sprinkling of poultry seasoning (I use the Kroger brand containing thyme, sage, marjoram, rosemary, black pepper and nutmeg), then set the pots to boiling until the chicken is done.  I then get out my largest mixing bowl, put my colander (strainer) in the bowl, then dip the chicken out of the pots with a slotted spoon into the colander.  I reserve the broth made in the boiling process for a later step.  I let the chicken cool a bit, then I skin it and tear the meat from the bones and cartilage.  I then shred or chop (whichever you prefer) the chicken into bite size portions.  I combine the broth from both my pots into one pot so that I can cook the macaroni in the broth.  I usually do these steps in the morning then refrigerate them until time to assemble dinner in the evenings.  When it is time to fix dinner, I heat the broth to boiling and cook  one pound of macaroni until tender.  I get out my big bowl and colander again and pour the macaroni and broth into the colander sitting in the bowl to retain its heat while I make the sauce.  To make the sauce I put the chopped chicken in the pot I just poured the macaroni out of and add two family size cans of cream of chicken soup, again I use the Kroger brand, but Campbell's or another brand if you prefer can be used.  I toss in a little more poultry seasoning, then heat thoroughly.  You can vary this by using one can of cream of chicken and one can of cream of mushroom or cream of celery.  Will does not do mushrooms so I usually stick with the cream of chicken.  You can thicken the soup mix a bit with some corn starch if you like.  I then drain but do not rinse the macaroni so it retains the flavor of the broth, then mix with the sauce and voila you have chick-a-roni.  I use this as a stand alone meal, but can be served with veggies or a salad and some garlic toast or bread sticks too.  This recipe makes 2 or 3 meals for Will and I and like traditional pasta dishes, it sometimes tastes better the second time around.  This recipe is tasty, delicious and economical, how can you go wrong?

Moving on to the music and the men, today's video has Violin Concerto Number 1 by Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in a marvelous performance by Joshua Bell accompanied by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Sakari Oramo recorded in HD.  The video is followed by a tasty selection of denim clad (more or less) muscular Men in Jeans sure to put the rise in your Levi's (which is the whole point, right?).  Thanks for the visit, see you again tomorrow for this week's edition of Naked or Nearly So.  Until next time as always, Enjoy!