Cheapie Chicken Recipe Series

Chicken is the cheapest meat, and for the next half dozen blog posts I'll give you a clutch of pleasing poultry entrees you'll crow about. I'll even stuff-in a couple recipe videos.(You can click on any recipe name now, to see all the tasty details in my blog posts.)

If you're a penny pincher like me then you know poultry is the way to go. As an example, I get chicken from my local Latin market for 99 cents per pound and less. I often get a 10 pound bag of leg quarters (that's leg and thigh combined) on sale for 67 cents per pound! White meat breast is frequently priced at around 99 cents per pound. If you can break down a whole chicken, then it's way less than a buck per pound. And every once in a while I even get boneless and skinless leg quarters for 88 cents per pound! Now you know why I like to cook with cluckers.

(Of course, if you are the health food type with a few more ducats to blow, then, by all means, splurge on chicken that's organic, free range, no hormones or antibiotics - you can still use my tasty recipes.)

When I want to feast on fowl, fried chicken is number one. It's all about the crusty coating for traditional fried chicken, and I have a delish seasoned flour recipe for you. You'll have to check back and watch my video to find out how I make a moist and crunchy Fried Chicken Sandwich. Chick-fil-A, look out, there's a new poultry purveyor on the scene!

Fried chicken is easy to make but it's a little greasy, so you don't want to make it every week, but I have a lighter entree that's even simpler to do, my Roasted Chicken & Peaches with Herbs.

It's a one pot meal: just add a couple of your favorite chicken pieces with fresh peach slices, and sprinkle on some herbs with a splash of white wine. Bake it for 45 minutes and you have the best of both worlds: sweet baked fruit and juicy roasted chicken. I find fruit and poultry go so well together. And this is another of my stop motion animated recipe videos.

You can't get much cheaper than rice and chicken, so I include a quick and easy to make Chicken Fried Rice recipe.

I also have a ripoff recipe. Hey, when you find something that's so delicious, you gotta do it yourself, and if you can do it cheaper, then all the better. My wife likes to shop at Trader Joe's here is Los Angeles. It's a cross between Whole Foods and a regular grocery store. They have a lot of prepared food stuff, and one of the best is Trader Joe's Curried White Chicken Deli Salad. It's the most savory chicken salad you can pile on a cracker.

When I was trying to figure out the recipe, I would drop by Trader Joe's after work to take a picture of the chicken salad ingredients, but I found it always sold out! It's the type of to-go food that you must buy earlier in the day -  by the time everyone hits Trader Joe's on the way home from their 9 to 5 (or in my case, 10 to 8) it's sold out.

The tricky part is, how much of each ingredient do you use? I think I got it close enough, and I'm happy to share it with you. Some of the ingredients are: cashews, raisins, shredded carrot, green onion, curry powder, and of course, white meat chicken. It's all too much of a good thing.

You know where I get my plucked pullets, or broilers. As for the other ingredients, most come from my local 99c only Store. Trader Joe's sells eleven ounces of Curried White Chicken Deli Salad for $3.99. I made almost twice as much for less than the market price.

So do check back for my flock of cheap$kate, but delicious, chicken recipes.