A Word About Chicken

One of the most common ways to purchase chicken is the chicken cutlet. The convenience of this cut, whether boneless breasts, breast tenderloins, breast strips, or boneless thigh meat often leads to the waste of an expensive piece of meat. Chicken can be used to add tremendous flavor and variety to a multitude (plethura! infinity! gazillion! way too many!) of dishes.

Rachel bought a 1# package of breast strips from the discounted meat section (a great way to stock up and save a bundle on meat at the same time). They were pre-cut strips that would work in any stir fry or pasta dish.

I found them ghastly, being the food snob that I am. I'd much rather butcher my own bird, or at least buy a whole chicken and cut it up myself. If I had my way, we'd all be raising our own "yard birds" from heritage breeds. But I don't have it my way, and Tyson is about the best that we can do on my paycheck. So I made lemonade from those lemons. Pasta arrabiata, to be exact. However, as is my custom, I felt the need to reserve 1/2# of the breast strips for another dish later.

The recipe will follow shortly, but I wanted to get across Leftover Principle no. 1: When preparing a dish or tinkering with a recipe: if you know you can get the same flavor using smaller quantities of certain ingredients, then make do with less.

I promise you, no one missed the extra 1/2# of chicken in the linguine arrabiata. And the sauce was simplified, thus allowing the tartness of my version of the vinegar-based sauce to shine through. Always a good idea when cooking Italian food.

Later on this week, I used the 1/2# of chicken to make about a gallon (or more) of chicken tortilla soup. It imparted a wonderful flavor when paired with the sofrito base, light brown roux, and turkey broth.

In essence, I was able to extend a $3.00 package of chicken breast strips to make 2 meals. True, I had to use other items to make those meals. However, the price of the meat, which often manages to eat up the grocery budget, was minimal. Thus saving us money.