Unrelated to Anything: How about some free chicken?

Since I got sick, Phoenix and Lablad have to do a lot more cooking, which means using more convenience foods, like boneless/skinless chicken breasts, to be used in things like grilled chicken sandwich portions and even shake-n-bake. Hey, I like shake-n-bake, a couple of times a year. In fact, if they made a Stove-Top-stuffing without turmeric (which I am allergic to) we'd probably eat Shake-n-Bake and Stove Stop Stuffing about once a month. I've told people that if I have to eat foods like this (which is really easy for my wife whose Mom made A.Things in Crock-Pots (made wrong) and B.Things with Spam and C. Things from Cans and D. Spam-Containing Crockpot Foods from Cans) that as long as they are good and not served with other seriously sodium-filled things, I'll have them in moderation, quite happily.

If you're wise, you've noticed that a boneless/skinless chicken breast is actually bigger than it used to be. They usually contain extra ribmeat, etc.

Now, a lot of my 'money saving' suggestions require skills on the part of the cook, this does not, so this is not 'how to make 5 dishes from one chicken,' this is just how to get an extra serving of chicken....

Next time you get those giant, split boneless, skinless chicken breasts, especially a container of 3-5 lbs of them, get out a pair of scissors and cut the breast piece into 'normal sized' (old fashioned) chicken breast halves. Try to make each piece about the same size. They tend to be super thick on one side, so cut a little bit off the bottom on that side. Now, trim the super-thin edges and the rib meat right off. Cut these into small chunks, and if you're like me, and a family meal includes odd-numbers of meat servings, take any extra breasts you have and chop them up.

Put the trimmed portions into freezer bags (if they are going into your freezer) or otherwise save them, and trim the chunks into stir-fry sized pieces, put them in freezer bags, and boom, in the freezer.

Last time I did this with 7lbs of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, I got 4 packages of trimmed cutlets (3 each) and 2 packages (1 lb each) of chopped meat for stir-fries and tacos. Normally, we would've just taken the 9 pieces of chicken, put them in 3 bags and had bigger Shake-n-Bake pieces. Instead, we had 6 meals, not 4, and no one felt like they were short-changed. The gummy, overcooked corners were gone, and we didn't have to overcook the chicken to get that extra-deep part cooked.

So, there, have some free chicken on me.