Freezer Chicken Stir-Fry

I promised you a third delicious freezer chicken meal, and I have delivered!

Day 3: Stir-Fry

Stir-fry is not a recipe, it's a way of life.  Now, there were a couple reasons I chose this last preparation for today.  One, it's a great way to use what you have around, as you can add or subtract veggies or a noodle or rice or whatever protein you have.  This way, it stays incredibly affordable and helps avoid waste.  Two, stir-fry is a great way to embrace the mantra "Eat better, not less."

I have not always had a healthy relationship with food, despite my deep love for it.  I have used food as a comfort when I've been in a bad place, and I've also gone through spells where eating is a battle in its own right.  Neither of these represents a healthy relationship with food, and this is coming from someone for whom food is the ultimate good.  I know I'm not alone in this.  Many women in college (91% in a NEDA Survey) will attempt to control their weight through dieting, and many will resort to unhealthy restrictions to food or excessive workout regimens.  And it starts sooner.  42% of 1st-3rd grade girls (we're talking about girls as young as 6, here) are unhappy with their bodies.  [It's no coincidence this post falls during National Eating Disorder Awareness Week.]  "Eat Better, Not Less" needs to become a part of the vocabulary surrounding food and body image from a young age.

Part of why I love stir-fry is that the end result is usually high in nutrients, packed full of flavor, loaded with tasty veggies, and all for a reasonable caloric value.  And I never finish a pan full of stir-fry still hungry.

So, down to the cooking!

Take a serving of your freezer chicken (thawed, obviously), cube it (this basically means cutting it into bite size pieces), and season with salt and pepper.  You'll also want to chop half a medium-sized onion or all of a small onion/shallot, and a clove of garlic.

Turn on your burner and put 1-2 tablespoons of oil (I used olive oil) into the pan, setting the heat to medium-high.  Add your onions and garlic, just until they start to sizzle.  Then add your chicken.  I then added some chopped mushrooms because I had them, and they take a little longer to cook through and get nice and meaty.

Once your chicken is white and opaque on all sides, you're going to add your vegetables.  I used frozen green beans and frozen carrots.  Then, add about 1/4 cup of water and crank the heat as far up as it will go.  You're going to cook the veggies on high heat for only 2-3 minutes, and the steam from the boiling water will also help cook your chicken the rest of the way through.

Once most of the water has evaporated, the last step is to finish with about a tablespoon of butter and 1-2 tablespoons of soy sauce, tossing all of your meat and veg in the mixture!

Shrimp on Shrimp: Simply Banh Mi

So today a friend of mine from undergrad and I went out for lunch.  He was visiting the DC area as a short break from his warm, fabulous life on the West coast.  I'm not sure he made the right choice, but it's always great to see friends.

We met up at Simply Banh Mi, which specializes in Vietnamese food.  Who doesn't like Vietnamese food, really?  It's in Georgetown, which is not typically the neighborhood you hit up when you're hoping to throw around the term "affordable," but the prices really weren't bad.

Banh Mi is a Vietnamese style sandwich, typically full of fresh veggies and most notably made with pork belly.  I'm a really big shrimp fan, so I got their shrimp banh mi.

The place is a pretty no-frills establishment.  There's only two tables in the tiny shopfront and your sandwich comes out wrapped in butcher paper.  All that being said, the flavors on the sandwich were fantastic.  The shrimp were perfectly cooked, the slaw was full of fresh carrots and sprouts and cucumbers (though I could have done with less cucumber), and there was an aioli-style sauce that I would have eaten with a spoon, had I had the option.  I got mine pretty mild, but they definitely had the option to spice it up with peppers and sriracha.

We also split an order of spring rolls, which were full of shrimp and greens and noodles and served with a peanut-y dipping sauce.

Again, definitely no-frills, but the flavor was there.  Definitely would recommend as a nice under-$10 lunch spot for the Georgetown area.  Don't expect a lot of atmosphere, and expect to be yelled at if you try and clear your own table, but it's definitely worth the visit.  

7/10

Oven-Fried Freezer Chicken and Beer Gravy

Today's recipe is brought to you by Freezer Chicken Part 2.

Day 2: Oven-Fried Chicken with Beer Gravy

Hey woah woah hey.  We're cooking with alcohol today.  First things first: this particular recipe will cook out most of the alcohol content, so it's kid friendly.  But do NOT believe the people who tell you that alcohol cooks off whenever you cook with it.  This is a lie.

Food Science Time: The alcohol content of the finished product has a lot of variables: how much and what kind of alcohol you put in, the kind of cooking you're doing, the amount of time you let things cook for, and the stage in the cooking process that you add the alcohol.  Long story short: the shorter the cook time, the more alcohol remains.  In this case, we're working with a beer that's less than 6% ABV, and mixing it into a simmering gravy, mostly to add some lightness to the texture and a little bit of that beer flavor.  The end result, even though a good portion of it will not have reduced in the time it takes to make a gravy, will have less than 1% ABV, and thus be okay for your kid-friendly palettes.  This is not the case for Grandma's Rum Balls that she soaks in rum after they've baked.  Those things are loaded.

Chicken:  We're going to start out by preparing the oven fry, since that will take the longest time.  Set your oven to 425.  By now you know the Freezer Chicken drill.  You better have let that chicken thaw, preferably in a controlled, chilled environment overnight.  If you have a whole breast, cut it into chicken strips.  If you're like me and bought the pre-cut tenderloins because they were on sale, you're already golden for this recipe.

You're going to create an egg bath and a breading.  Egg bath is super simple.  Crack an egg (I say one egg for every 3-4 strips) and beat it with a fork until it's achieved an even consistency.

For your breading, combine half a cup of breadcrumbs (you can buy these store-bought or smash a sleeve of crackers against a wall; I don't know your life) with half a cup of flour, a teaspoon of cayenne pepper, a teaspoon of salt, and some parsley flakes.  This is a dry mix so you can add or remove seasonings as you see fit, based on what you have.

Soak your chicken in the egg bath for a couple seconds on each side until it's obviously coated.  Then, toss the chicken in the breading mixture and place on a lightly-greased baking sheet.  Once all your pieces are breaded, drizzle with a little bit (no more than 2 tablespoons total) of oil and stick it in the oven for 30 minutes.

In the meantime...

Gravy:  You're gonna need butter, salt, pepper, flour, chicken stock or chicken broth, and beer.  In this case, I'm working with a pretty cheap pilsner that I know you can afford to get your hands on, but pretty much any lighter (in color) beer will work with this.  Save the dark beers for beef.

Any good gravy starts from a roux.  A roux is a combination of equal parts flour and fat that makes your gravy nice and thick and gravy-like, without turning into glue.  Combine two tablespoons of butter with two tablespoons of flour on the stove, and keep stirring while the butter melts, until the two have become a weird, delicious gooey mess.  To this, you'll want to add about a cup of chicken stock or a cup and a half of chicken broth (stock has more flavor and so you'll need less and you won't have to reduce it as much).

Add a cup of your beer and bring the whole mixture to a boil.  Let it boil away for about 5 minutes, stirring, until it begins to thicken. After that, reduce your heat and add salt and pepper to taste, letting it stay on low heat until you're ready to serve.

Then, I don't know,  Make a side or something.  I'm not your mother.

Grad Student Eats Tip:  Making your own stock is super easy.  I made my own by simmering the bones and extra chicken in water with some salt after I accidentally bought a whole bone-in chicken side when I meant to buy a thigh.  The longer you let it simmer, the more fat and flavor you'll extract from the pieces you probably wouldn't eat anyway.  Then, just strain it and throw it into a container to use for later recipes.

For Reference

I shall deliver your two more delicious chicken recipes!  In the mean time, I figured I would share this.

If you're interested in other food-related things I've had to say, I've included links to food posts from my other blog.  Feel free to check them out.  Or don't.

In which I talk about my love of food: On Food

In which I talk about the intersection of politics and food: On Monsanto and Frankenfood

In which I give some short tips and tricks about cake decorating: On My Life as a Domestic Goddess (Or Cupcake Decorating 101)

Freezer Chicken Buffalo Chicken

I promised you three different freezer chicken meals, and that's exactly what you're going to get!

The first of these meals is a take on an old dining hall hack from my college days.

Day 1: Buffalo Chicken Pasta

Now, this recipe is pretty simple.

The first step is to thaw your chicken overnight.  If you didn't plan ahead, there are ways to defrost chicken quickly, but the food safety nut in me would really like it if you didn't tell me if you used any of those.  I like to freeze my chicken in single servings of 2-3 tenderloin pieces or 1 small chicken breast or cutlet, which seems to be the perfect single serving size for me.

Throw the thawed chicken, quickly salted on both sides, into a crockpot, along with one cup of chicken broth.  Never use a slow cooker without some liquid, or you'll wind up with a super dry finished product.

To that, I also like to add about a quarter cup of buffalo sauce and a tablespoon of cream cheese.  If you don't have buffalo sauce on hand, you can combine your favorite hot sauce with equal parts butter.  If you don't have hot sauce, I don't know if we can be friends.

If you feel like adding veggies to the mix, this is the time to do so.  I use a lot of frozen veggies because I can get them $1 a bag, and they last longer than their fresh compadres.  If you'd like, I can follow up later with a Dos and Don'ts list of which veg to buy frozen and which you HAVE to buy fresh.  I'm using corn here, because I have it and because I think it  pairs well with spicy food.

Set your slow cooker to low for 6 hours (or high for 2), and walk away.

The last steps here are to make your pasta (I really like penne for this, though here I'm using Ziti because I bought it by accident) and toss the final product.  Scoop your chicken out of the slow cooker, and shred.  Spoon sauce and veggie mixture over pasta.  Finally, toss with some ranch or bleu cheese, depending on your spice-cutting sauce of choice (to taste).

It didn't photograph super well...

Grad Student Eats Tip:

This recipe also works great with leftover chicken.  Just heat the chicken through in a toaster oven or microwave and toss with the sauce (minus the chicken broth) for a shortcut version.

Freezer Chicken

Greetings, fellow foodies!

If you've wound up at this blog, you probably have some experience with my other blog, Witticisms, Criticisms, and Snark.

This blog aims to pursue a different interest of mine -- all things food.  As you probably know, I'm a Master's candidate at American University in DC.  DC currently has an amazing food culture -- new places opening up on a regular basis, great access to unique markets and fresh options, and an expanding set of festivals.

Aside from all that, I also do a lot of cooking from home, because it's really the only way to make Eating DC work on a grad student's budget.

As a result, I'm planning on sharing DC food experiences, personal cooking adventures, and maybe some tips for dining on a budget, both in DC and at home!

Tip #1 to Eat Well on a Grad Student's Budget:
Buy and freeze!

So this is what the inside of my freezer currently looks like:

It's less than lovely, but what I can tell you is that there are enough single-servings of fish and chicken in there to last several weeks (as well as some special surprise bacon).  Buy on sale, package individually, and freeze!

Tip #2 to Eat Well on a Grad Student's Budget:

Variety!

This might seem counter-intuitive to the freezer full of chicken and tilapia, but the secret here is re-purposing ingredients to add a little fun to the monotony of repeating the same protein.  If people can publish cookbooks on a year's worth of chicken recipes, it's easy to turn three chicken meals in one week into different and fun meals!  If you want proof, that is exactly what I plan to give you.  Over the next week, I will show you three different, affordable ways to prepare that bulk chicken purchase without letting it get boring.