So how I've been doing with rotisserie chicken is, I take apart the chicken whenever I'm making my next salad: save the wings for snacking, take the meat off the thighs and drumsticks, and the breast meat generally pulls off in two big pieces. I put those pieces back into the container the chicken came in and eat them all week. The rest of the chicken carcass and bones get put into a gallon ziploc bag into the freezer, where they add up all summer. Like right now I have five gallons of chicken parts in the freezer.
Maybe ideally you would fill up two gallon bags and then make chicken stock, and keep up with it like that. But for whatever reason, God in His wisdom installed my air conditioner in the kitchen pointing at the stove. And by God in His wisdom I mean my landlord, who is really not like God except in the sense that I don't know a lot of the reasons for what he does; but at least I see my landlord, sometimes. Anyway if the air conditioner and the stove are on at the same time, the air conditioner blows out the stove. So not only do I never turn on the oven in summer, I have to turn off the air conditioner if I want to turn on the stove and I wasn't having that this summer at all.
So when it gets cool enough to turn off the air conditioner, I make a few batches of chicken stock. It's easy, it just takes five hours on the stove. When it's done and cool, I pour it right back into quart size takealong containers for the freezer again. This is heresy I know—but then again compared to what—but I don't like soup actually, I only want soup when I'm sick. Then it's stone soup time, but that's a story for later.
2 gallon bags of chicken parts
3 quarts of water
an onion
two celery stalks
two carrots
a bunch of parsley
two or three bay leaves
Put chicken parts and water into a stock pot over high heat. Bring to a simmer, then simmer uncovered over low heat for 3 hours.
Roughly chop onion, celery, and carrots and add to the pot with parsley and bay leaves. Simmer another for 2 hours.
Strain and cool. Pour into quart size takealong containers and freeze for later.
