Feeding a Family - Making BBQ Chicken Lunch Meat

The deli can provide the consumer with an abundance of different meats, flavors, thickness of slice, high sodium, lower sodium no fat, low fat, etc... a perfect place to find the quick and easy fillers for two pieces of bread. Quick and easy also are known to be very expensive. Many deli meats range in price from $7.00 to $9.00 per pound. They come packaged in resealable bags or containers so you can keep your meat fresh for a couple days.

Try making your own lunch meat after reading this blog. If feeding your family good quality food is your goal, then keep reading.

Yesterday I purchase chicken thighs with the leg attached. I like this meat because it cooks well and will be more forgiving even if you over do it a little. The other reason for picking thighs and legs is the price. At my local grocery store this kind of chicken costs $0.74 a pound.

A pound of deli meat will cost approximately $9.89 a pound. My purchased of $9.07 worth of chicken is comparable to the amount of deli meat I used to buy before going on a budget.

I have simply put the chicken on the bbq skin side up to cook on low (275F) for the next couple hours. Try to minimize how many times you turn the chicken, meat tends not to stick to the grill when it is done cooking on one side.

Let the chicken cool is something big without a lid, I used my roaster.

To separate the meat from the bones and skin I just used my fingers, slow roasted chicken will pull away from the skin and bones with ease.

The bone and skin do not go to waste. I put them in my slow cooker with onions, carrots, salt, poultry seasoning. Top the slow cooker with water and forget about it for a couple hours. I leave mine cooking o low overnight and in the morning strain.

This leaves me with 10 cups of chicken broth for soups, polenta, rice, pizza dough, etc... If you are not going to use the broth right away freeze it in containers. Once frozen transfer them to a freezer bag so you can use your containers for other foods.

You can get a free copy of our book "The Scratch" by sending an email to rickjhenderson@hotmail.com I won't share your email with anybody. The Scratch is about making three great meals to feed your family for under $17

BBQ Pork Pizza

BBQ Pork and veggie pizza with quick oats

To make it we start with 1 cup of cold filtered water that we will heat in the microwave. Warm water from the tap has a metallic taste. Add 1 tablespoon of yeast and let sit until it begins to look foamy or cloudy depending on your yeast.

Next add two cups of flour and 1/3^rd cup of quick oats to the wet ingredients and mix with a fork. When everything is well mixed, you should have a ball of dough, if not add a little more flour. Next, flour the counter with extra flour and run your fingers through the flour to spread it out. Dump the wet ball of dough on the counter and flour your hands so the dough does not stick to you.

Knead the dough to form a nice ball, set aside and cover with damp towel. If you look closely at the picture you will see little flakes of quick oats. These will soften to match the texture of cooked pizza crust when you are done.

I am all about the leftover and today we have leftover BBQ pork which has been cut thin with a good sharp knife. For vegetables, chopped red onion, green pepper and sliced olives.

While the dough continues to rest I use my mini blender to make the tomato sauce. This is real easy, slice a tomato add some oregano, garlic and onion powder. Pour a little olive oil and blend. You will have a nice pink sauce.

Now to work the dough. I do it by hand but I do not toss it like they do in pizza restaurants because the mes would be to big to clean up. I roll it with a rolling pin to create the general shape of the pan I will cook it in. In this case I am using a 14 x 11 cookie sheet.

Oil the cookie sheet with any oil you chose. Place the pizza dough on the cookie sheet and finish stretching the dough to fit. Spread your sauce over the entire pizza using a large spoon then begin adding your toppings. We usually place the meat first, then cheese and followed up with the vegetables.

Bake in your oven at 500F for 10 minutes, turn the heat down to 400F and wait for the crust to turn dark brown.

After you remove the pizza from the oven wait about 5 – 8 minutess before cutting the pizza so the toppings do not slide off.

All that is left to do is enjoy your home made high quality pizza!

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Sliced Pork Sandwiches

Used the last of the pork as lunch meat yesterday. I sliced the pork thin with a good knife. Put a little home made mayonnaise on each piece of bread, added a layer of pork slices and some lettuce. The top piece of bread I spread BBQ sauce. Packed the lunches and everybody had a great sandwich.

I find roasts are much cheaper than paying big $$$ for high sodium, high fat content lunch meat.

You can get a free copy of our book "The Scratch" by sending an email to rickjhenderson@hotmail.com I won't share your email with anybody. The Scratch is about making three great meals to feed your family for under $17

Oatmeal and BBQ Week!

The Sun is out and things are startitng to warm up.

Last night I found a great deal on bulk quick oats from my local grocery store. I also purchase a little bit of walnuts, brown sugar and raisins. Oatmeal is so inexpensive at $0.99 a pound. It may take me a couple months to use up the $2.75 worth of quick oats in my home.

The plan is to use quick oats in everything. For breakfast I will substitute 1/3 cup of flour for oats in pancakes and waffles. We will also eat it with brown sugar, nuts, maple syrup or raisins.

I want to get outdoors and bbq everyday but that might be tough. I will add quick oats to polenta and bbq it as a side meal. I will grind it and mix with flour for a coat while baking chicken.

My pizza dough will be altered by substituting 1/3 cup of quick oats to flour dough.

One thing we know for sure, the meals will be hearty, tasty and healthy.

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I love finding a roast on Sale!

I found a chuck roast on Sale, the manager had just finished marking down with extreme discount. Normally I would not buy a roast of chuck but I have a slow cooker and was confident it would make the meat tender.

I loaded the bottom of my cooker with the usual carrots onions celery and added a little oregano. Turned it on low and forgot about it until dinner time. As per usual the roast was tender, it broke into three pieces as I lifted it out of the cooker.

The roast has been eaten but it was the star of a couple meals;

Dinner was roast beef with garlic mashed potatoes and veggies.
Breakfast was shredded roast beef and egg sandwich.
Lunch was shredded roast beef and lettuce sandwich.

This weekend will be a bbq chicken weekend!

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March 2nd Breakfast Pancakes with peanut butter Get your Free copy of "The Scratch"

This morning I took two of my kids favorite breakfast foods and combined them. They enjoy pancakes and peanut butter cereal.
I made the pancakes like I usually do but dropped about 9 peanut butter cereal pieces on each pancake before they firmed up.

As I expected they gobbled them all up!

You can get your free copy of my mini book "The Scratch" It is three great  meals you can make your family.
Simply send me an email and I will reply back with a PDF. I am doing this manually and I promise not to share  or spam your email adddress
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March 1st starts with a great meal and Free "The Scratch" Book

Our family can never have to much pizza, we made an awesome pepperoni and sausage pizza with a mixed green salad with tomato, avacado, green onion. The dressing was a white balsamic package from some restauarant we were at months ago.

Tomorrow will be sandwiches as football practice starts early.

You can get your free copy of my mini book "The Scratch" It is three great  meals you can make your family.
Simply send me an email and I will reply back with a PDF. I am doing this manually and I promise not to share  or spam your email adddress
rickjhenderson@hotmail.com

Rick