h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What a fine article. I've been doing pretty much this ever since I discovered that in our local Tesco's, a whole chicken is cheaper than two breast fillets. It takes a sharp knife and about 6 seconds to cut off the fillets, if you're feeling energetic you can remove the other meaty bits, mostly the legs, and do something fun with them (chicken curry would be my suggestion).

Everything else goes into the pot with water and veg - I like to add a bay leaf or two and a few peppercorns, but otherwise just as above. Almost no effort, wonderful stock.

The next task - and this one is messy - is to get all the pieces of succulent meat off the carcass and give your cat or dog a treat. They will love you forever.

Now you have the stock, you're in the perfect position to make soup.

Add carrots, cabbage leaves, leek, onion and a potato, simmer for 30 minutes for a lovely thick vegetable soup about 1000 times better than anything which ever came out of a can.

Add chinese egg noodles for the best possible cure for a cold.

Or, if you don't like soup:
Boil up a pint of stock in one pan
Melt some butter in another
Put a cup of rice in the butter pan and coat every grain.
Take a ladleful of hot stock and pour it on the rice. Once it's absorbed, do it again, and then again...
After 10 minutes or half the stock, add some mushrooms (porcini are best, but any will do).
After another 10 minutes or so, you have a delicious risotto if you want a richer dish, stir in some shavings of parmigiano reggiano (that's parmesan to you - but NOT the pre-grated stuff!) before serving.

Mmmm. Now I'm hungry.

Yum! You're welcome to come over to my place and cook any time. We can even start the whole process with a free-range farm-fresh chicken. I find that older roosters make excellent stock, being strongly flavored and best suited to long slow cooking.

And yes, the cats to appreciate the leavings. Though, around here, I simply dump the whole pile of strained-out meaty bits and let the outside kitties sort through the scraps. Organic waste disposal!