Story of a chicken

I've been trying to stick to my grocery budget for the past few months.  The amount was pretty doable earlier this year, but once Emma started eating what we were eating, I began preparing "healthier" food, which means much more produce than before (which probably attributes to the additional 15 lbs I've lost from my pre-pregnancy weight -- yay!).  Therefore, to make everything work into our budget, I've been making a lot of rice and beans, enjoying toast or oatmeal in the morning instead of cereal, and eating lots and lots of chicken (instead of beef, pork, etc). 

So the other day I decided to stick a whole chicken in the crockpot to make things easier on me.  I just seasoned the inside and outside of it and turned it in on low for a couple of hours.  I took it out and left it cool for about an hour.  My friend Mary and baby Laura were over at the time.  I asked her if she had any tips on what to do with the leftover juices -- "I just top the juices in the crockpot with water, chicken bones, and veggies, and let it sit on low overnight" she said (I added the giblets in it as well), "then you have homemade chicken broth."  Yuuuummmm...

I did as I was told, and what ended up happening?  I ended up with toooons of broth.  Wonderful, right?  Well, the only problem is that I have only so much room in my freezer.  

What to do?  What to do?  Got on pinterest... What to do?  What to do?  I got it -- cream of chicken!  SCORE!

All prepared and ready to cool down before bagging.

Bagged and ready to go into the freezer.

I prepared this recipe.  I was not too pleased with it -- it had too much flour.  I am going to either tweak it or use a different one next time around.

What was Emma doing all this time?  Playing in the kitchen near her mama <3