Cooking Day!

We went to Sam's Club on Saturday and stocked up on some things. I'm not out of bread flour, but the price has dropped to the lowest I've seen it - $6.99 for 25-lb bag - so we picked up another bag. One 5-lb bag at the store is running $3 or more, so we're pretty much getting 13 pounds of bread flour for free. I can handle that! We also picked up boneless skinless chicken breasts, a total of 12 pounds, and 30 pounds of ground beef. Today is a cooking day!

A was a doll and cooked up 10 lb of burger with only a little seasoning, which will be bagged 2 cups to a bag and frozen (shold be 9 bags), ready to pull out and heat for tacos, spaghetti, hamburger bbq, anything we need cooked ground beef for. Now what am I going to do with the other 20 pounds?

5 lb pico de gallo burgers
5 lb cajun burgers
5 lb hamburgers
5 lb meatballs

Try mixing up gourmet burgers yourself for half the cost of them at the butcher counter when you can even find a butcher counter that does them! Websites like www.cheese-burger.net/tag/gourmet-burger-recipes are great inspiration sources. Mix, shape, flash freeze or wrap in plastic wrap, and bag, then thaw and grill/broil when you want something different for dinner.

A big help for us for quick meals is to have small (1/4 lb), grilled/broiled hamburgers in the freezer. We go as far as putting one regular hamburger bun and one cooked hamburger in a sandwich bag and then putting a bunch of them in a gallon freezer bag, then when someone wants a burger, we microwave a hamburger for a minute, put the roll in the microwave and heat for another 15-20 seconds. Voila! Hot hamburger and soft, fresh roll.

Meatballs. People so often overlook these nuggets of helpful protein. We'll mix up 5 lb of basic meatballs, 1 tablespoon (1 oz) each, broil them until barely done, then flash freeze and bag. Check out http://www.meatballrecipes.net/ for some ideas, then start checking your favorite cooking websites for recipes using meatballs. We like best meatball subs, spaghetti and meatballs, meatballs with a sweet and tangy ginger sauce over jasmine rice. This fall, I'm going to be trying a couple of recipes in the crockpot using meatballs and a fruit based sauce which can be served over rice with steamed vegetables on the side.

Now for the chicken. Every last morsel will be used for boneless wings, using a Chili's copy cat recipe I got from a book that I unfortunately cannot remember the name of! This is a wonderful recipe. Fantastic fresh, they freeze and reheat in the oven in 10 minutes. Toss them in 1/4 c. and 1 T melted butter/margarine, and you have great boneless buffalo wings.

1 c. flour
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp paprika
1 egg or 1/4 c. egg substitute such as Eggbeaters
1 c. milk or soy milk
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
oil for frying

Combine flour, salt, peppers, and paprika in a medium bowl.
Whisk together the egg and milk in another medium bowl.
Cut the chicken breasts into 2-bite-size chunks (original recipe says 3/4" thick, 1 3/4" wide, 3" long) or smaller if you like.
Dip each chicken piece into the egg wash, then dredge in the flour mixture, setting aside each piece on a plate or cutting board.
When all of the pieces have been dredged, repeat the process. Chill for 15 minutes while the oil heats.
After the rest period, fry in hot oil for 5-6 minutes. Chicken will be golden brown and crispy. Drain on towels.