By Rita of sammysgrammy

The other day, I stopped at my local supermarket and bought one of those rotisserie chickens. The price is $4.99. They have several flavors. I bought the lemon-garlic flavor. (it is very mildly flavored - which I wanted)

Step One is: what kind of chicken do you feel like having for dinner? I felt like having chicken salad on a croissant for dinner that night. I took all the breast meat off the rotisserie chicken and used it to make chicken salad. I had this chicken salad for about 4-5 meals. (I lost count)...............

 Here's how I made the chicken salad: Shredded the breast meat with my (clean) hands into a large glass bowl - Diced a couple ribs of washed celery into the chicken bowl - Halved a handful of seedless red grapes into the bowl - Rough chopped about 1/3 cup of pecans into the bowl - Used lite Hellman's mayo (into which I sprinkled about 1 tsp. of curry powder)to blend it all together............. There's my lovely chicken salad. .................................................................................

However, on another night I might have been feeling like a chicken quesadilla. Here's how I would have prepared that dinner. I would only use a couple strips pulled off one side of the chicken breast. Shred that. Next, take a large tortilla, spread Mexican shredded cheese all around it, not quite to the edges. Melt that in the microwave. Next I lay on the shredded chicken toward an edge. On top of that, a layer of quacamole, then salsa. Fold in the sides, then roll it up like a wrap. And, voila! a chicken quesadilla.................................

You'll still have the other half of the breast plus what's left on the side you used for the quesadilla which you can make a smaller version of chicken salad from. ..........................................................................

Or you could use the chicken to make Chicken Divan.............. I still had all the dark meat (legs, etc). I wrapped this in plastic and froze it for another day. I also froze the juices which were in the bottom of the container that the chicken came in from the supermarket......................................

In the rotisserie chicken's next appearance, he appeared as Spinach-Tortelini Soup. I took that frozen bird out of the plastic and wrapped him (tieing the corners)in cheesecloth because I didn't want bones floating around in the soup. I filled a large kettle with cold water, added the chicken to bring to a boil. Then turned the heat to simmer. I added the frozen juices. Next I added a whole onion, several carrots, several ribs of celery,a few sprigs of parsley and about a cup of canned tomatoes. I simmered this for a couple hours. Then I removed the cheesecloth bag of chicken, and the celery stalks from the broth. I removed the carrots and tomatoes, mashed them with a fork and returned them to the soup. Then I added a half a bag of baby spinach into the broth. Adding, at the end, a half pound of frozen cheese tortelini and cooking them in the broth for the length of time the manufacturer suggested........................................................... I had two bowls of this for dinner tonight with crackers. I have two quarts left over. I may freeze one...........................................................

I would say that was one of the smartest 5.00 I ever spent.