Snowing, Sickness & a Killer Chicken Sammy

I love it when I don't believe the weathermen who predict snow for us, usually because I'm right and they're wrong and we get 5 flakes, max. But today? Different story. Thank goodness I headed out when I did this morning, or I probably wouldn't have made it out at all. I left the house around 10am to hit up 2 grocery stores; after my quick trip into the first one, I noticed on my way out that it was beginning to snow every so slightly. By the time I'd come out of the second, it was coming down pretty hard. Since MD drivers aren't exactly "top ranked" in snowy conditions, it's nice to be home and off the roads. It's also nice to have a fire in the fireplace crackling away, to watch the snow coming down outside, to smell the cinnamon crumb cake that just came out of the oven, and to know that I have chicken simmering away in the crockpot. This is the first day in roughly a week I haven't felt like complete crap-ola.

So about that chicken. I'm not sure how or why I never thought of this idea before, but I hadn't. I recently read about it on someone else's blog, and while I'd love to give credit to the person who got me thinkin' about this, I got nothin'. I completely spaced out where I read about this idea. I suck. But I'll be the sucky girl with lots of chicken soon!

Here's the idea that I'm lovin' right now: since bone-in chicken is pretty cheap, why not cook up a bunch of it in the crockpot all day, then pull it all off the bone, shred/chop it up and vacuum sealed bags for later use. Buppy and I use chicken in a lot of dishes, and a lot of the time we end up poaching boneless, skinless chicken breasts for something that requires shredded or chopped chicken, like the chicken enchilada dip wraps I made recently. Instead of using the more costly meat for dishes where it doesn't really matter what piece of the chicken it came from, why not make up a whole bunch of pre-cooked stuff? Brilliant. And pretty darn simple. I can usually find boneless, skinless chicken breasts anywhere from $1.69-$1.99/lb. on sale, but today I picked up leg quarters on sale for .49 cents/lb. I realize I don't as much meat since I have to bone and skin them once they're cooked, but that's ok. Plus, I get some really great chicken broth to use in soups. Yeah, I'm so all over this one. I see it going pretty well in my head, and hopefully later tonight it'll all play out like I'm imagining. I'll let ya know. I'm cooking 5+ lbs. right now.

As for my sickness? It's finally releasing it's death grip on me, slowly but surely. I missed Monday, worked only a few hours on Thursday and called out on Friday. It's gone from stomach to head cold to stomach to head cold several times within the past week. If this is indeed karma, you'd think I killed someone. I'm still a lil' stuffy and my stomach is still not quite right, but that's the usual for moi. Come Monday, I'm gonna have to jump back into work full force after missing so much last week. Thank goodness it was a relatively slow week.

Lastly, I'd like to share a simple but wow-was-it-tasty sandwich idea with you. I'm sure anyone could have looked around my kitchen and come up with this, so it's by no means mind blowing. But should you find yourself with all of these ingredients (or something similar) on hand, throw 'em together and prepare to be dazzled. Well, your taste buds at least.I split open a hamburger bun we happened to have leftover, then threw some sliced tomato on top. I left it open faced and made each half the same since I knew from the get-go it wasn't going to fit in my mouth if I tried to make it a regular sammy. I topped each half with bacon slices, avocado, lettuce and part of a chicken breast we'd made in the rotisserie the night before that had marinated in a garlic-peppercorn mix. I meant to put a little mayo on the bun to moisten things up, but since I forgot, I added a little to my plate and dip my bites in. Not healthy, but seriously, it was crying out for mayo and I couldn't say no. So the sammy wasn't easy to eat, even with a knife and fork, but I loved every minute of it. The buttery texture of the avocado really added the extra ooomph I was looking for and really, who doesn't love bacon and chicken? So that's it. Simple. Tasty. Messy. And mmmm-mmmm good.