Dump Chicken - Unattractive Name, Incredible Concept

The first time I heard about dump chicken, my reaction was an understandable "ew!" because the name is so very unattractive. Then I started checking into the concept, and a lightbulb lit up in my head. This was brilliant! Dump chicken is when you place (dump) chicken into a freezer bag, then add (dump) the ingredients for a sauce, glaze, or marinade in, seal it, freeze it, then thaw in the fridge when you want to cook it, pour (dump) it into a baking dish, skillet, crockpot, or other cooking vessel/method, cook, and voila you have a great chicken dish. That's a bit simplified, but the variations are incredible - there must be 100 or more variations. This concept can actually be applied to any meat, although we do it most often with chicken, usually boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs. This last weekend we went to Sam's Club and bought a big tray of boneless skinless chicken breasts at a good price ($1.77/lb if I remember correctly). When we got home, we divided the breasts into quart bags that were labeled with three different recipes: fajitas, garlic lime chicken, and pepper lime chicken. The breasts were huge so we only put one breast per bag, figuring if more than two people will eat the chicken, we'll get out more than one bag. The marinade can be stretched, so each of these recipes can make 4-8 normal sized pieces of chicken in a gallon freezer bag. We'll grill or broil these particular recipes, but other recipes we've tried have done well in the crockpot or the oven. Think how great this is - you add whatever marinade you want to whatever meat you want, freeze it, then a day or so before you want to make it for dinner, you pull it out of the freezer and put it in the fridge to thaw and to marinate simultaneously. Brilliant!

Pepper Lime Chicken
1/2 teaspoon lime peel

2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup lime juice
1 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon basil
1/4 teaspoon salt
4-8 pieces of chicken
Place all ingredients in a gallon freezer bag, and freeze. To make, thaw in the fridge, then grill or broil until done, bake in a bakind dish at 350 for 25-35 minutes, or cook in a crockpot on low for 4 hours.

And check out dump chicken collections on websites like Recipezaar (http://www.recipezaar.com/cookbooks.php?s_type=%2Fcookbooks.php&q=dump+chicken&Search=Search)! The possibilities are incredible!