Chicken, Chicken, and more Chicken!

So, while this may be a departure from the "normal" post around here, I just had to share. For the first time ever, I bought 40 POUNDS of chicken! Boneless, skinless chicken breasts to be precise. Zaycon foods was doing an event nearby, the price was right, and we had the money. So, why not, right?
First things first..the pick up. It was super easy. All I had to do was drive to the location with my printed confirmation receipt, go through the line (and there weren't any cars in line ahead of me, so it was really fast!), they loaded the box of chicken into my car with a piece of plastic under the box, just in case, and I drove it home. Could not have been simpler!

Ever wonder what 40 pounds of chicken breasts looks like? We'll, I'll show you....

40 pounds of chicken breast, still in their box.

The chicken is in 4 separate bags inside
a larger bag and then in the box.

 The chicken was straight off the bone. In fact, the 2 breasts were still connected. So I took them out, separated the 2 breast, and cleaned off any extra fat (there wasn't very much). All the breasts were quite large, so some of them I cut in half for packaging.

One HUGE chicken breast!

Look how big! That is 15 breasts sitting on the cutting board.

 

All the chicken is cleaned and ready

Once the chicken was all separated and ready, I vacuum sealed 20 breasts for dinners later. Each bag weighed just under 1.5 pounds, more than enough for most meals we make (and that's for a family of 7!). I will be canning about 18 pints of the chicken, so I put the chicken for that into gallon sized ziptop bags. If you're wondering about canning the chicken, yes it is safe, as long you follow directions and use a pressure canner. I also cut up 1 1/2 breasts to use for our dinner that night, and sealed it in a bag with some soy sauce, garlic and cornstarch to marinate.

3 gallon bags of chicken that will be canned later,
10 vacuum sealed bags of 2 breasts each and
1 bag with 1 1/2 breasts cut up and marinating for dinner

Cooking the chicken for dinner

And finally, dinner! (Small portion, I know, but it's for my littlest!)