101 Ways to Eat a Chicken

I'm sitting here thinking my "In The Kitchen" section looks like I never cook. In reality, I'm a fairly decent cook of most basic things. I don't get fancy too often. My "A" personality type simply can't stand to take the time to read completely through a recipe before just throwing everything in a bowl and calling it good, then getting really ticked when it doesn't taste the way the picture made it look.

Meijer has chicken breast BOGO this week, so I'm stocking up because everybody in our house likes chicken.

This week, we've already had chicken marinated with Italian dressing and Raspberry Vinaigrette Dressing. It was good, but I had to bake it in the oven. I would prefer it on the grill. I've also fixed it with the Italian dressing and a jar of strawberry jam or apricot (my sister's suggestion) preserves. I prefer the strawberry. Fix a box (for us, 2 boxes isn't enough!) of Lower Sodium Chicken Rice-a-Roni. Throw together a quick spinach/strawberry/pecan or walnut salad with the Raspberry Vinaigrette Dressing.

The kids all really like chicken covered in bread crumbs, covered with Alfredo sauce and baked for about 25 minutes. Toss some mozzarella cheese on the last 5 minutes of baking, serve with linguine.

At Aldi's or Dollar Tree, you can get Seasoning Grinders. They're cheap and really tasty. (Pick up the Sea Salt grinder at Aldi's. You won't want to use regular table salt after you've tried it, really! We accidentally used the pizza and pasta grinder in scrambled eggs, thinking it was pepper - mmmmmmm...now we use it purposefully on eggs.) Use any of the grinders, or Lipton Dry Onion Soup mix, or a GrillMates spice combined with crushed corn flakes - dip the chicken in a milk/egg mixture, drag through the corn flakes, bake it, eat it, wipe the drool off your chin.

One of my very favorite chicken salads just has shredded chicken breast, mayo, red grapes and pineapple. Put it on a sweeter-type bread or French bread for sandwiches. My boys pick out the fruit - I think they're weird. It's a mutual feeling.

Ok, that's my chicken ideas for the week. Hopefully liver isn't the sale at Meijer next week.