Preparing Chicken And More

I told my son, once he moved off-campus to his own place, that his money couldn’t stretch far enough to cover eating out all the time. I decided to make a booklet of recipes for him. I knew that I needed a good chicken recipe, since he liked chicken and it is a relatively inexpensive meat. I tried to find an easy baked chicken recipe, using a whole chicken, since I figured he could eat it for more than one meal. I prefer the recipe that has me stuffing the chicken with lemon slices. After thinking about it, I concluded a new cook and a whole baked chicken would’t get along.

He wouldn’t understand about the stuff in packets in the cavity, or tying the legs together, or how to carve it. It would require too much watching and basting so it wouldn’t dry out. I was also concerned that without a meat thermometer he might undercook the bird. Then I decided on a recipe for baked chicken instead. It’s simple and all you have to do is start with an entire chicken cut up into pieces or a package of one part such as legs, wings, or breasts. It doesn’t matter whether it’s been deboned or not. Purchase a package of Shake and Bake, or something similar, which will provide a coating of bread crumbs, and then simply follow package directions. Chicken breats are the most expensive form of chicken but are still cheaper than fast food.

I thought of a lot of things for my page titled chicken breast recipes. Obviously, he could use them with the Shake and Bake. But I hoped he would be a little more adventurous, so I suggested some simple stir fry recipes that would require just some cooking oil, soy sauce, green onions, and a can of water chestnuts. He likes tacos, so I included instructions for slicing still partially frozen breasts real thin and then cooking with a little oil until they were white and using them in place of ground beef with the recipe on a box of tacos.

I also told him that he could make a much better than canned chicken soup by getting a soup starter kit and then cutting up some breasts, cooking them in a pan with a little oil, and when done adding them to the soup mix, along with more noodles, or anything else he wanted. I can’t be certain he took advantage of this small book, but I tried.