Chicken Prep for Bulk Cooking Session

Following up to yesterday's post, I have everything made (except canning the stock) with pictures and recipes. The problem is there are a lot of pictures so I thought instead of making one huge entry, I would break it down into a few entries. I started with 2.92 kg of chicken breasts with skins and bones. For those not into metric 1 kg is about 2.5 pounds. This gave me eight lovely chicken breasts with skin and bones. The problem is for the majority of what I wanted to make, the skin and bones would have to be removed. Note, I said removed not tossed unless of course you toss them into the stock pot, which is what I did.

There is a trick for removing both skin and bones from chicken or any other meat. Start with a sharp knife. Removing skin is fairly easy. Just pull with your fingers on a loose spot, slip your knife in and cut the connecting tissue holding the skin. It will come off very easily. In the middle picture you will see me holding the knife at an angle. This is how I remove the bones from chicken breasts and fish. A fillet knife helps but once you get a hang of it a regular paring knife will work. Cut a slit between the flesh and bone. Now, hold the flesh in one hand with slight tension while making sharp cuts along the bone. You will be left with the fillet ready to prepare as desired. Once you have done this and seen how easy it is to do, you will no longer pay the higher prices for boneless/skinless chicken breasts.

Tomorrow's entry will be: Lemon Pepper Chicken and preparing chicken for the freezer. Watch for Chicken and Dumplings on Tuesday. The recipe and picture for chicken stock is in the archive.

Bulk Cooking - $12 Worth of Chicken

This blog turned one year old today. I can't believe it has been that long! I'm very stressed today so am cooking up a storm. I can't promise you any recipes or pictures tonight but they will be on the blog tomorrow and the next day or two. I might have to break them down into a couple of entries. The theme will be chicken.

Chicken breasts with skin and bone in on are sale so I couldn't resist. It will be a few days of processing chicken but not back to back. Today's and overlapping tomorrow for the canning session was $12 for the chicken breasts. That was for eight good sized chicken breasts so I decided to break them up into three dishes (5 meals), wraps (3 meals), one snack (Rachel Ray's Chicken Poppers) and homecanned chicken stock. I'd say that isn't bad for the price. I'll more than likely do another two or three sessions.

Cream of Broccoli and Cheese Soup

Broccoli has to be one of my favourite vegetables. It has a lot of health benefits including cancer fighting properties, lowering the risk of stroke or heart attack and protecting against anemia. Honestly this is one vegetable I could eat every day of the week! Raw or cooked, broccoli just has it happening. I love it simply steamed with a little butter as a side dish or snack but also use it as an ingredient in a lot of dishes. What I don't like is overcooked broccoli aka mush.

Cream of Broccoli & Cheese Soup

Cream of broccoli and cheese soup is a very easy to make soup and versatile at the same time. Leave out the cheese for a simple but flavourful cream of broccoli soup. Both are filling, unpretentious comfort foods. Serve as the main course or as a side.

Cream of Broccoli Soup
recipe by: Garden Gnome

2 sm heads broccoli, washed and chopped
1 clove garlic
1 sm onion, chopped fine
3 tbsp butter
2 c beef stock
4 c vegetable stock
2 c milk
3 c half & half cream
sea salt & pepper to taste
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese* (optional)
flour slurry ( 2 tbsp flour mixed with water to pouring consistency)

Prepare the vegetables. Sauté the onions and garlic in butter in a large saucepan until onions are translucent. Stir in broccoli and stocks. Bring to a boil and let cook until broccoli is tender. Stir in salt, pepper, milk, cream and *(cheese if desired). Heat. Blend about a quarter of the soup with a stick blender and stir into the remaining soup. Thicken with flour slurry if desired.

Slowcooker (Crockpot) Pork Shoulder Roast

I've mentioned in other entries that I am not a huge fan of crockpots even though I have two. They are mainly used during bulk cooking sessions. With the house being on the market I decided to do a few more meals in the crockpots for a couple of reasons. These include having a ready to eat meal without a lot of mess since for some obscene reason people insist on viewing the house during the dinner hour. The side effects are the house smells wonderful and if needbe a short delay doesn't mean a burnt dinner. But I think what it is also providing is nice homecooked meals consistent with our lifestyle or in short giving us comfort food to help ease the stress.

Crockpot Pork Shoulder Roast

Normally I like cooking pork shoulder roast in the oven but I knew the day was going to be hectic so hauled out the crockpot. I knew I would be away for the morning but the house was pretty much ready for showing. This was so easy!

Method: I placed a frozen pork shoulder roast in the crockpot, added about 1/2 c of water then tossed in a medium onion chopped and set the crockpot to low. That was about 8 am in the morning. I had no idea what sides I was going to serve but already had an idea for the sauce. When I got home about 2:30 pm I poured in 3/4 of a bottle of Dianna Sauce® Original Flavour over the roast then let it continue cooking. About 1/2 hour before serving, I thickened the juices with a little flour slurrey (flour mixed with water to a runny consistency).

Serving Suggestion: This meat literally melts in your mouth, it is so tender! I served it with balsmatic rice, homecanned green beans and a tossed salad. Left overs are ideal for sandwiches the following day.