illdothedisheslater

(It’s not what you’re thinking.  I’m not a monster.)

Wait a minute – aren’t you supposed to be making ambitious stuff?  Homemade cheese and fifty pizzas and sugar cages?

Well yeah.  That was the idea.

And you’re making shredded chicken?  That’s it? 

Yeah.

Isn’t this just an excuse to throw some shit in a Crock Pot, then binge-watch Gilmore Girls and try to turn it into an amusing anecdote for your readers?

Yes and no.

Explanation please.

Firstly, on an unrelated note, I think the actress who plays Paris Geller’s mother was also Kelly Taylor’s mother on 90210, which is almost as amazing as the ginormous plaid scrunchie Paris wore in the episode I’m watching right now.

Okay – so the plan for this weekend was to attend Cheese School – an intensive all day cheese-making class, which I’m sure would have made an excellent blog post.  But due to construction at the Cheese Academy, they’ve postponed the class until (maybe, hopefully) January.  So I’m stuck with no blog fodder, but still want to play in the kitchen a little.  And I’ve been wanted to experiment a little with a new technique.  AND I went to work today in red skinny jeans with knee-high black boots without realizing I kind of had a Mrs. Claus thing going on that was NOT flattering.  (Which has nothing to do with anything, but warrants a mention.)

A few months ago I went to a dinner party at my new cousin Skittles’s house (not her real name), where she served Buffalo Chicken tacos from a recipe that has been all the rage on Pinterest.  I don’t Pin – I tried it and almost immediately recognized the life-suck it would likely turn into, and quit cold turkey.  (Well, I might pop in from time to time.)  While I’m not doing that today, I’ve tried it a couple times, and it’s awesome – chicken breasts, wing sauce, and ranch dressing mix.  Set at low for four to six hours.  Shred with tongs.  Eat.  It’s a perfect hands-off, low-fuss, crowd pleasing dinner.   Good on you, Skittles (not her real name).

The coolest part about this recipe is how the chicken turns out.  Boneless, skinless chicken breast, widely known as the Hufflepuff of the culinary world, gets dry, chalky, and flavorless if cooked for 0.6 seconds too long.  Even cooked perfectly, it’s nothing special.  And I’m a girl who knows her chicken breasts.  Since I make around 6 gallons of chicken salad every month, I’m no stranger to cooking and shredding chicken.  The Buffalo Chicken recipe, despite the long cooking time, turns out moist, stringy (in a good, chicken-y way), and delicious.  AND the shredding is easy – just insert tongs and twist.   My chicken salad almost always involves bone-in breasts, baking in broth, then an hour hunched over the bowl tearing it apart by hand while the dog circles like a shark and the cat sits on my shoulder like a parrot, poised to dive straight into the chicken bits.  The technique has improved slightly after learning you can shred chicken with a stand mixer and the paddle attachment – more dishes, but less elbow grease.  But can I just throw it all in the Crock Pot for that long, with no tenderizing wing sauce and get the same results?  Let’s find out.

I want a hot pink chef’s coat like Sookie St. James wears SO BAD.

I’m going to tilt the odds in my favor by using good chicken – by which I mean not the grocery store stuff.  This is good chicken from the butcher:

How can you tell?  Well it’s not “enhanced” (I’ll lay off that today), and the meat is the size of a regular hand (not my giant shovel-paws), and not as large as an eight week-old Labrador puppy.

Nice job awkwardly shoehorning your clever title into this post.

Thanks.

Your blog is SOOOO not like any other food blog on the interwebs. 

I know.

I don’t mean that as a compliment.

I know.  (Hangs head in shame.)

Couldn’t you just shred some chicken and talk about it in, like, two paragraphs?  This is getting way too long.

Yes, but –

The sale price at the butcher shop was for five pounds, so here we have five pounds of BSCBs, split and trimmed of nasty chewy bits.  Then simply add salt (one tablespoon), pepper (one teaspoon), and one 14 oz. can of chicken broth.  Set on low for four hours, and fire up Netflix.  Two gentlemen, one dressed like the Artful Dodger, are having a conversation about how freakishly tall Lorelai is.  I Google it.  I’ve got her by half an inch.  Hmm.  Might explain the giant hands.

I’m new to this show, but I don’t really think Luke would be wearing a Burberry flannel shirt.  Does Burberry even make flannel?  (Google: yes, they do.)

Four (to six, depending on your Crock Pot) hours later, the chicken shreds up nicely.

That’s a terrible picture. 

Maybe it’s not all tongs, but it’s still far quicker than shredding by hand, or by fork.  It’s maybe just a touch dry, but the flavor is good and the leftover broth is amazing.  For BSCB’s, I’ll say this turned out very well.

ZOMG!  The Bangles are in this episode!  I love the Bangles.  I lurve them.

Five pounds of raw chicken yielded three and a half cups of cooked, shredded chicken bits.

But what are you going to do with all that chicken? 

Anything and everything.  Here are just a few ideas:

– Add barbeque sauce to make BBQ chicken sandwiches

– Add pesto and noodles for a pasta dish

– Chicken salad of course

– Add to soups

– Add to salads

– Add to ramen

– Add an envelope of taco powder for tacos or enchiladas

– Add to any vegetarian dish to improve it meatily.  I mean mightily.

Shredded chicken can do almost anything.

With Halloween just around the corner (I’ve been doing this blog for over a year!), here’s a special link to a jack-o-lantern stencil to make a disapproving pumpkin version of Emily Gilmore.  (a.k.a. Marjorie Houseman!)

https://nypdecider.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/emily.pdf

Happy Halloween!