Anyway, I read an interesting article in the local newspaper today about how much food goes to waste in this country. The amount was staggering! The article also stated that something like 40% of food in your own home. Now just think about that number, 40%. Almost half of the food you cook at home goes in the trash. Stop for a minute and consider how much you spend every time you go to the grocery store. Math is hard for me so work with me here- if you spend $100 a week then $40 a week is being thrown away. WHAT?!?! I don't know about you but I do not want to throw that much money away. That money could be put somewhere useful like into a bigger dang house or college fund or name brand mac n cheese once in a while.
So this made me take a look in my already scarce pantry. Oh, one glance will tell ya that it is in between pay weeks in this household too! What I came up with is simple but hopefully delicious. Tonight's dinner will be Pulled BBQ Chicken Sammies and what I now call Scrappy Tater Salad. Nothing fancy by any means but filling, uses up those rogue potatoes that are beginning to grow sprouts and what little bit of chicken was left in the freezer. Here are the recipes for both:
Pulled BBQ Chicken Sammies
6-8 Chicken Tenderloins
Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce
Onion Powder
Brown Sugar(cause I like it sweet)
Crockpot
Crockpot liner (OK, you don't need one but they are AMAZING)
Place the chicken in the crockpot, sprinkle with onion powder, cover in Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce. Cook on low for 6 hours. The chicken will easily shred at this point. I added a bit more sauce, a few tablespoons of brown sugar and a tad bit more onion powder to kick it up a bit. Stir it all together and keep on low. Serve it up on whatever kind of buns or rolls you have around.
For the potato salad this was a total experiment. I had never made potato salad but I think it turned out OK considering I did not have any onion or celery to add to it. If you dig around on the interwebs you will see that most recipes contain both. Here is what I pulled together for it:
Scrappy Tater Salad
4 large baking potatoes
4 eggs
1 1/2c. mayo
1/2c. mustard
pickle relish plus some juice
onion powder
black pepper
Peel the potatoes and rinse off. Cut up into large, bite size chunks and place in a medium size pot. Add enough water to cover the potatoes, add in some salt and bring to a boil. Cook 10-12 minutes at a rolling boil until the potatoes are done but not mushy! In another pot, hard boil the eggs. Dump the potatoes into a strainer to drain the water off and set aside. Peel the eggs and dice up; set aside. In another bowl ,mix together the mayo, mustard, pickle relish and onion powder together. Mix in the potatoes and eggs until all is coated. Taste test it and see how it turned out! Cover and chill until it is ready to serve.
And once it is all assembled and plated this is what it looked like. I added a few of my Grandpa's sweet dill pickles too.
It was a big enough hit that the teenager even came back for seconds!Hope you give it a try and let me know what you think.
~L
