Unexpected company (my sister, niece and nephew) for dinner the other night made me realize how something so simple can sometimes be invaluable. I'm talking flash-frozen convenience chicken.
Sam's Club has 6.5 lb. packages of chicken thighs and legs. Many times I've placed 9-10 pieces in a gallon ziplock bag, dumped in some BBQ sauce or marinade, and frozen it like that - and when it thaws, it's already marinated and ready for the grill. But if you're like my family, we like BBQ sauces & marinades with high sugar contents, and I noticed that the sauce will be black by the time the chicken's done cooking. You can't really baste it with the sauce in the bag...raw chicken bacteria, salmonella & all...ick.
Freezing just the plain pieces of chicken is OK - but when you thaw it out, you still have raw chicken to cook. I'm all about saving time as well as money.
So my solution is to pre-cook the chicken in the oven. I season it with a little salt, pepper and onion powder and bake it at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. When it cools, I transfer it to a cookie sheet lined with waxed paper, and freeze the chicken pieces separately. When frozen, I store them in a ziplock bag, and then I can pull out only what I need to thaw and reheat later.
While reheating the chicken on my grill (on LOW!), I can baste it with bbq sauce whenever I want, and it won't burn. Reheating the chicken takes @ 30 minutes.
Note - my sister said there was no way they could tell it was previously frozen. In addition to the chicken, I threw some rice into the rice cooker, grilled some zucchini and summer squash, cut up a whole slew of raw veggies, and opened a can of baked beans, My nephew made sure he told me he had cleaned his plate. :-)
Unexpected company doesn't have to send you into a panic, or to the phone for take-out. Having food in the freezer for convenience means you can entertain AND enjoy your company at the same time.
No comments:
Post a Comment