Yesterday I popped into Food Lion to grab some stuff for my sicky father in law. You know, the usual...Gatorade, chicken noodle soup, saltines....and while I was there I noticed boneless skinless chicken breasts were on sale for an unheard of $1.79/lb. I grabbed 6 packages and came home with them. It was then, as I put my bounty into the fridge, that I began to wonder why I didn't get more. I mean, I got 5 packages of chicken for like $14......DUH! The sale ends on Tuesday nights at 10:00....so I made plans to scamper down there again today to stock up.
Today I went and got 7 more packages. I brought them in and began preparing them in the way that I mentioned in my cook-ahead post for chicken (Found on Moneywise Moms). I have found by trying this prep method a few times which way we use the most of the meat, so I devised my own plan.
I put 4 breasts in the crockpot with a can of tomatoes for shredded chicken tacos. This makes 2 meals for us as I usually end up cooking some ground turkey along with it to give my crew* a choice of tacos and enchiladas.
I put 4 breasts in the pot with a big spoon of garlic to boil and then dice up. My crew* loves my chicken casserole recipe, (I will post this for you) which is super easy and calls for a large can of precooked chicken, sort of like tuna. This is easy and quick, but costly too since a can of that stuff usually runs close to $3 and I always wonder what is really in it........
I took the other breasts and butterflied about half of them, making thin, neat and tidy chicken cutlets. Bread these babies in Italian bread crumbs and cook them in a tiny bit of olive oil for a super yummy and very fast dinner! The other half I trimmed up nice and neat and left them thick for grilling. (That way they don't dry out)
All of the little leftover bits got tossed into a zipper bag for soup or chicken "hamburger" helper.
It is all done, except the crockpot chicken which is making the house smell soooo good! Total time...with mom in law bagging and labeling? About 30 minutes. And guess what? Since we figured it up and we got 10 meals for our family* for about $25, Kathy went BACK to Food Lion to get more chicken!
*note: our family consists of two men with hearty appetites, two women and an 11 year old girl in a growth spurt who is eating everything in sight!
Easy Chicken and Rice
1 bag, about 1 lb. cooked chicken pieces
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 large spoonful mayonnaise
a handful of those french fried onions, the kind that go on green bean casserole
Mix all of this together and bake it about 30 minutes at 350. Top with another handful of the french fried onions and bake another five minutes or so to brown the little crispy onions. :)
This is VERY good...but I never promised it was healthy!!! I got this recipe from my good friend Ginger about 5 years ago and have been making it ever since!
3 comments:
I can't believe you daughter and husband (the anti mayo people) will eat this casserole with those ingredients (or do they know there is mayo involved????). Sounds yummy, will have to try it sometime when the girls aren't going to be eating because neither of them would eat it if they knew the mayo was involved - maybe I can "accidentially" forget to say there is mayo in there!
NO THEY DO NOT KNOW IT IS IN THERE!!!!!!!!
what a great deal and thanks for the ideas on how to prepare that much at once.
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