Hows that for a dumb title? Well, you too will feel like saying silly things and maybe even doing the chicken dance after you spend such a short amount of time creating so many delicious meals for your family. Plus, I just had a great cup of coffee so my typing fingers are under the influence of caffeine.
Last week – using ugly meat pictures – I showed you how I used my Eat Right Away: Beef Edition packet to make 6 Beef Meals in only 45 minutes. I promised you that I would do the same with the Chicken Edition. So here I am. But this time – I’m excited to report that it only took 35 minutes of work time to crank out 6 meals. We have big eaters at our house, so the only way I was able to turn 8 pounds of meat into only 6 meals for us is that I’ll be adding several fruit/veggie sides along with potatoes, tortillas, rice, or pasta to stretch that chicken. If your family is smaller than mine – you could do the same amount of work and end up with more than 6 meals!
I’m really, really excited about this. One of my biggest goals here is to emphasize that it really doesn’t have to be difficult or time consuming to feed your family healthy, real food meals. Here is the run-down of my 35 minute date with 8 pounds of chicken.
On Friday, I picked up my Bountiful Basket meat order (the first one to come to our town!). I got 24 pounds of nitrite-free bacon and 24 pounds of nicely raised boneless/skinless chicken. I put 8 pounds of chicken in the fridge to thaw.
On Saturday, I got to work making four out of five of the recipes included in the Chicken Edition packet. (I didn’t make the Teriyaki Chicken and Veggie Kabobs because while I had plenty of chicken, the other ingredients needed were not on sale. No need to pay full price – I’ll make a triple batch of those another time!)
These are the recipes I worked on:
- Easy Apricot Chicken
- Sloppy Salsa Chicken
- Mexi-Chicken Pasta
- Chicken Tostadas
First I put 2 pounds of chicken into a pot with the Apricot Chicken ingredients, put a lid on the pot, and started it cooking on low. It was an exhausting five minutes. Thank you for your compassion.
Next, I used kitchen shears (the best way to cut chicken, if you ask me) to cut 4 pounds of chicken into pieces for the Mexi-Chicken Pasta and Chicken Tostadas. Want to know what’s great? You use the same ingredients to cook the chicken for both of those recipes so this is super efficient!
There it is. Seasoned and ready to cook. Prep took about 15 minutes. Onto the stove it went.
I put the remaining 2 pounds of chicken into a third pot along with the Sloppy Salsa Chicken ingredients. Two minutes later, it was cooking on the stove. Are you grasping how easy this is? I burn complicated recipes in my fireplace. I like simple foods.
While all three pots of chicken cooked, I ate lunch with my family. (Tuna casserole, green beans, and raspberries – thanks for asking.) I stirred the chicken from time to time while our older boys shared about their week at camp. (They’d just gotten home a couple hours before lunch.)
After lunch, the Mexi-Chicken Pasta and Chicken Tostada meat was finished – so I set it aside to cool.
The Apricot Chicken was finished to I used a fork and knife to kind of shred it. I say kind of because it’s not completely shredded. I got to a point where I was like, eh good enough.
Same thing on the Sloppy Salsa Chicken. I shredded it until it was at the “good enough” stage. It’ll pull apart more when we rewarm and serve.
(I told you these chicken pictures were ugly. Good thing this stuff tastes so good.)
At this point, I let all three pots sit out to cool. Later, I filled five freezer bags: 2 with Sloppy Salsa Chicken, 2 with Apricot Chicken, and 1 with chicken for Mexi-Chicken Pasta. The remaining chicken was left in the pan to quickly rewarm after church Sunday for Tostadas. Lunch within five minutes of getting home from church? Yes please!
Those five bags of food joined the 6 beef meals from last week.
I’m going with your suggestions on which packets to work on next – focusing on meatless and slow cooker recipes. It is too much fun and oh so helpful to learn these new recipes.
Learn more about the Eat Right Away Packets here. Or just grab them here:
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I love how easy it is now to pull out these prepared foods to serve to my family. Tuesday we put baked potatoes in the crock pot, set out a bag of frozen Apricot Chicken, then went to the swimming pool. We got home, warmed up the meat, cooked some green beans, cut up a cantaloupe, and had our meal. Crazy easy. Plus, all my men raved about how good the Apricot Chicken was. Bonus!
Have you tried any of the recipes in these packets yet? How’s it been going for you? Hope they are a blessing to you as they have been for us!
Nikki says
The food sounds great, as usual, and I love the quickness and ease. I got stuck on one part, though — kitchen shears for raw chicken? Why have I not thought to try this before? ! I pinned this post to my kitchen hack board just so I’ll remember to get the shears next time I buy chicken breasts. Thanks for all the helpful tips!
Laura says
YES! So easy. :) :)
Kris says
Shears work wonders! I have about 15lbs of boneless thighs (on sale) in my fridge that is about to turn into many, many meals. I don’t precook but I do season and freeze…fantastic!
And last night I was so proud—I made a HUGE pot of spaghetti sauce—some for actual spaghetti, some for a lasagna, and even made 8 pizzas to freeze. Thanks to one of your followers tips, I now top my unbaked crusts before freezing and works much better b/c I never seem to have the time or ingredients on hand when I go to make them. True multitasking…and it didn’t take that much longer. So worth it.
Laura says
Wow, that’s awesome work!! I love having that kind of food in my freezer ready to go!
Rebekah Walden says
I have tried and tried to order this set but am totally not able to can you please help me.
Laura says
Rebekah, I fixed the issue – see if it works for you now! If not, try on this page? https://www.heavenlyhomemakers.com/eat-right-away-introducing-2-00-packets-built-to-bless-your-family-dinner
Kayla says
Buying both the beef and chicken recipes right now. As always, Laura, you are such a blessing and I can’t wait to make your recipes.
Laura says
Yay! Hope you love them like we do!
Amy says
Bought them both two days ago. I’ll be trying one of them out next week. I’m so excited, as other websites I’ve seen this type of thing on charge enough to make it cost prohibitive. I’m so thankful that you chose to bless us with so inexpensive a resource. Notice I didn’t say “cheap”, as its value far outweighs it’s cost. I read each download carefully, thinking about the many hours you put in to it. I noticed the step by step do-it-all-at-once instructions at the end, and thought, “Wow! She didn’t have to do that!” You could have charged more, and gotten more, but instead you made this reachable for those of us who couldn’t pay more. Thank you.
Laura says
I really appreciate this feedback. Thank you!!!!
Karen says
I purchased this last week and am so excited to try making these yummy meals in one big prep time. I like how you gave the ingredients needed for each recipe but then also gave a big list if we wanted to make all of the meals in one session. I also like the layout with the “boxed” instructions. I am looking forward to the other $2 cookbooks you come out with. Excellent value. I’m printing them and putting them all into one notebook. :) :) :)