Knocked me out with those American Thighs...

My wife was shopping yesterday, and found a sale going on for chicken thighs...99 cents a pound.  Since we were low on 'ready use' chicken in the freezer, she picked up 8 and a half pounds, which might seem like a lot, but ties into my little rant yesterday about paying for convienience. 

Growing up, I was not a chicken thigh fan...ewww....dark meat.  Now, though, I have found that the thigh meat stay's moister and jucier, and more flavorful than the boneless/skinless breasts we used to use for most of our chicken applications. 

So...start with your chicken thighs, and give them a light olive oil massage, and then rub in some of this(garlic powder, 'chicken seasoning', Montreal Steak Seasoning) and that(cumin and paprika).

Then, get yourself a big, heavy skillet heated up, and throw in a little olive oil and some bacon fat(shame on you if you don't have some in the fridge).  Sear each piece on both sides(gives them some color, AND gets rid of a little of the fat), and then throw them in a baking dish, and once you have that all loaded up, cover it tightly with foil, and toss them in the oven. 

I do mine at about 350 for 1 hour(if I have longer, I will do 325 for 1.5 hours).  Even in the oven that long, in a sealed backing pan, with all the fat in the skin, they still come out juicy, juicy.  I had pictures to prove this, but due to a communication error, they were deleted priot to making it on the computer...whatever, you've seen cooked chicken before.

I then give them a few minutes to cool, before peeling the meat off the bones, and shredding it up.  Once totally cooled, we package it in zip lock bags(somewhere between 12-16 ounces each) and throw them in the freezer.  Now we have single use packages of cooked chicken meat that just need to be thawed and mixed in with anything...chicken taco's, chile, chicken alfredo...never mind, I feel like Forest Gump. 

So...was the .99 cents a pound a good deal?  Well...from a weight standpoint, I started with 8.5 pounds of raw bone in thighs, and ended up with 3 pounds, 14 ounces(fudging here a bit...I ruined the true scientific part of this by eating like two thighs worth of chicken during the process...yum.)  Redoing our math, we come out with $2.17 a pound, and that's not bad for a 'in-the-freezer, ready to go' protein source. 

Looking forward to chicken pot pie this week, now...