Chicken

Grocery stores have a convenient method to chicken - pre-portioned, pre-packaged chicken that comes frozen. Typically this comes in forms of chicken breast. When you do the math its $4+ a lb for this chicken. The bad thing I have found about this is because of the way its packaged you can rarely tell the quality of the meat you are getting. Typically you are buying alot of fat as well.

I have found its worth the extra effort to buy fresh, raw chicken when it goes on sale. Kroger atleast once a month puts whole chicken, drum sticks, thighs, breasts with rib bones on sale for .99 a lb. They put boneless skinless chicken breast on sale for $1.99 a lb. These are Tyson or Perdue brands, which claim to have less hormones added to the meat. I buy ahead when they put it at this price and just freeze it until needed. This saves quite a bit of money.

This week I bought a whole chicken. Typically what I do is cook the chicken whole and use it for a few meals. To prepare - have an empty clean kitchen sink. I then remove the wrapper and insides and rinse it off. Place it in a baking dish. (Don't forget to use antibacterial spray on the sink and wash your hands! ;) I then season it with salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic. Bake it at 375* for 1 hour covered with tinfoil then remove tinfoil and bake 1 more hour. This makes a great roast chicken. :)

So last night I did this, I bought a 5 lb chicken for $5.



To the right I made a pot of Chicken Chilli using the breast meat. Front left I cut off the legs, thighs, and wings since Caleb and I like the dark meat. I'll use this for a meal this week with sides. Back left is the chicken carcass with lots more meat left! I will boil this today in about 4 cups of water, salt and pepper for about an hour. I will then strain the water (keep it! its yummy stock!) and pick the remaining meat off of the bones. Add that meat to the stock along with some chicken boillion. This is the perfect base for chicken noodle soup or chicken 'n dumplings.



Chicken Chilli

2 15 oz canned petite diced tomatoes
2 15 oz chilli beans
2 TBSP chilli powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp black pepper
1 15 oz can corn
4 cups chicken

I mixed all this together in a pot and let it simmer for about 30 minutes. I served it with cheese, sour cream, and tortilla chips. Yum!