Our family eats a lot of chicken. I was buying chicken breast only when it went on sale for 2.00 or less. Cooking it in large batches and freezing it for future 'fast food'. I felt I was saving money because of the price and that there was no waste to the breasts.
Recently the stores have been selling split chicken breasts for .88 or less per pound. I bought a couple of pounds to cook and freeze when I had a light bulb go off. This is a chicken breast in the rough! A sharp knife, a little time, yielded a nice section of meat. I didn't come out exactly as I had hoped but those little pieces became chicken 'tenders' for a quick stir-fry.
I didn't worry too much about the meat left on the bones because those went into a pot to become chicken stock and soup in the making. Skins, extra fat and those other useless pieces went into another pot to be cooked with some rice to be added to dog food.
Everything, once cooked (the chicken had ice crystals on it when I bought it and I don't like to refreeze uncooked meat), including the "dog food" can be frozen in marked packages, making it easy for anyone in the family to make a quick meal.
So instead of spending 1.99 on 'no waste' chicken breast, I am spending a bit of time and getting the breast, soup, chicken pieces and dog food 'extender' for 88 cents!
I'm sorry but I disagree about this tip. I thought I would too save money by buying the boned-in as I have always waited for the boneless, skinless breasts to go on sale then stock up for various dishes, broth,etc... Last week our local grocer had boned-in for $.99lb (sale around here) so I bought what I normally buy to make my stock (6 lb). What I found surprised me to say the least. My stock was greasy and almost no taste, and after I weighed the cooked meat vs the poundage before, I lost 2lbs. When I factored in the new price, I actually ended up paying $1.49 lb only 20 cents cheaper than skinless,boneless (on sale $1.69). For the quality of stock and I had messiness the bone-in leaves behind, I am going to stick with boneless. Do your own test in your own area, weigh the end results. Oh by the way, it is okay to feed your dogs any type of raw meat and bone but it has to be raw! In fact, it is beneficial to them to eat raw meat at times to get the enzymes they need. http://www.rawfed.com/myths/bacteria.html among other sites Scarlett from MD
I went to a class this week and learned how to pressure can meat. They gave samples and they were delicious. They don't look great in the bottles so I was hesitant, but they were wonderful. I have a pressure canner and when meat is inexpensive, I plan on canning it. YOu can find information on how to do this on the internet. I also don't freeze anything that hasn't been put into foodsaver bags first. They stay better than anything else I have found.
With a little practise you will find that you can get almost all of the meat off the bone and the fillets will be exactly like the boneless ones you buy in the store. If you freeze them with the bone in, they are easier to debone. Take them out of the freezer and wait till they are thawed a little bit,enough to work with not completely thawed. Just run your finger between the grizzle part of the bone(tip) and gently pull off the meat off and keep seperating the bone and meat all the way and you will have a boneless breast just like the store, with little or no meat left on the bone. You will probably only be able to do a couple because it is so cold, I usually have to stop and warm up my fingers, but it is very easy to do.
While ALL meats are cheaper to buy in bulk; giving your pets tons of fat and skin is as unhealthy for your pets.
A healthy way to use all of your chicken is to render out as much of the fat as possible from the skins, leaving them nice and crisp. You can give strips of that to your dog on occasion for a tasty treat that won't stop their hearts years too early from eating garbage. NO bones to the dogs unless they're hard bones and large enough that the dog can't swallow the whole bone. That means no chicken or pork bones.
If your serious about using the entire animal and not wasting; save the pure rendered fat to make soap. It's easy to do, will be very creamy without any odor at all unless you add scent to it. It's also fun to do.
It takes all of 5 minutes or so to cook deboned chicken. If it's precooked, the meat won't absorb any added flavor or spices, leaving it bland and dry. You can't fix that even if you slather the outside in spices.
if you're intent on double cooking everything, make big pots of totally porecooked meals like a chicken stew and freeze an entire meal in small containers; ideally recycled plastic food containers.
I have a LARGE family to feed and have been thinking about doing this too. I don't have a deep freezer and am worried about freezer burn. Do you know the best way to freeze cooked and uncooked meat?
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