Maybe just a Little Variety

Chicken, AGAIN!

                                 Baked chicken

                                                                                         Barbecue chicken. 

Heart Attack Chicken (Don't ask. Its just a name that Ty made up for a dish I used to make. "Used to make" is the key phrase here. It was VERY good, but real people can't eat that way without dying.) 

That is all I used to cook. I literally made those three chicken dishes and Prego sauce with hamburger meat that I tried to pass off as spaghetti. Trust me, that is not spaghetti sauce. But I will talk about spaghetti another time. If I cooked, it was one of those four things and EVERYBODY was sick of eating it. Fast forward to today...

I will cook in four days.  Our menu includes some of our staples like Italian Chicken Salad (stolen from a friend of mine (Jenny Leigh!) but we have had it every month for over two years now.) It contains some favorites that are "really good but not good for you" (that's one of my favorite food sayings which I like to say in my best Julia Child voice), like Buffalo Chicken Soup and Sausage and Penne in a Cream Reduction. The "bad for you" meals always return after a 3-4 month absence from the menu.   But it also includes some new meals that we have never had, or at least, never had homemade.  These include Mongolian Beef and Zuppa Tuscana ( a potato and sausage soup that I hope turns out well.) That was one of the points of learning to freezer cook, to add a little variety to our boring evening meal.
And variety and excitement have been achieved:
                                    Old meals.
                                               New meals.
                            Soups.
                                                     Roasts.
                                                                          On the grill.
                                                 In the crockpot.
                                                                                        At 350 for 45 minutes. 
You never know just what you will get. You just know that it was prepared ahead of time, with love and a particular meal in mind.

Italian Chicken Salad

Ingredients

6 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken (I buy mine at the local warehouse store, i.e. Sam's)
A large bottle of Italian dressing
2 Ziploc bags
A crockpot
A big salad

Directions (YOU CAN DO THIS!)
Place 2 pounds of chicken in crockpot. Place 2 pounds of chicken in each of the other bags. (Usually in the 6 pound package of chicken from Sam's there are six pieces so I find the math very easy.)
Liberally pour dressing into all three, both bags and the crockpot. Put the bags in the freezer. Turn the crockpot on low and cook for 8 hours.  When its done, shred that chicken and serve it on your big salad. AND... salad is not complicated. In this recipe, its lettuce, dressing, chicken and croutons. But add carrots if you want. Or mushrooms. Or pea pods. But don't over think it and stress. Salad is just nature's way of cleaning out the produce drawer in your fridge.

That's it. Your dinner is in the crock pot and you have two more in the freezer. So next time you want to eat this, like next week, you don't have to go buy chicken and prep it. You did that part already. Just dump the FROZEN chicken and Italian dressing block in the crock pot (thaw just a little so you can get it out of the bag). Turn it on low and walk away. In 8 hours make a big salad. Dinner is done! You did it again! You are the Queen of the Kitchen and you have conquered the evening meal with no blood, no tears and no trip to McDonald's.  And you still have that trick in the freezer to pull out when you need it.