chicken

Okay. I have a confession. I HATE---hate---cleaning chicken. I try to avoid it. Which leads me to another confession: I often use chicken from a can [eek!! The preservatives! Oiy! I can just hear you...I know, I know, it's TERRIBLE!]

But here is the deal: When I think about what to make for supper and I realize it involves getting some chicken from the freezer and thawing it and then cleaning it, I almost always second guess my decision. We end up eating a lot of beef and pork! The sad part of this whole mess is that I LOVE chicken.

I hate thawing it. Whether I leave it out in the sink, or move it to the fridge for the day or WHATEVER... the juices and the smell just do NOT sit well with me. And then there is the little pieces of white, rubbery fat dangling and clinging to its surfaces. It is so slippery that I can barely grab it and I'm so grossed out I typically end up cutting off way more chicken than is necessary just to get rid of the fat. And then there are the veins!!!! Oh the worst part if you ask me. I know most people leave these in because in chicken they are not that big of a deal as compared to calf liver [I heard on a cooking show calf liver veins are just the WORST!], but if I see one I have to cut them out and end up mutilating the poor guy.

And here is my other confession: I'm talking about SKINLESS, BONELESS CHICKEN BREAST! HA! Most of you probably don't even bother to really look these over and just throw them in the marinade or the casserole or the whatever. I can't do it. When it thaws and I see just one miniscule piece of that jiggling, white fat on there I have to take action. I have, at one time in my life, cleaned out an entire chicken. I had to call Brent's grandma and ask her exactly how to go about it, which end to start at, which bones to break first etc, but I did it! Once. I know some of my relatives and a lot of my friends grew up on farms where they hacked off the head, watched the chicken do the little dance with blood spurting [OH, so THAT's where the whole "like a chicken with its head cut off" comes from...now you know], and then proceeded to pluck feathers, THEN rip it apart and clean it out. The nice part about that process though is there is no thawing...well, unless you grew up on a farm in Northwest Iowa and then maybe the chickens running around were always partly frozen?

Anyway, last night as I "cleaned" the chicken I almost justified buying those neat little packs of precooked and pre-cut strips of chicken breast. If they weren't like $10 a pound I might. I do like the $5 rotisserie chicken at WalMart for this reason, though.

But...if I ever win the lottery you can be darn sure what I won't be doing any more. I will hire someone to clean and cook my chicken for me!

**And on a more serious note. Thank you to those of you that said prayers for Jaque. She came through surgery and is doing well. They did find some cancer in her lymph nodes and had to remove them, but they are fairly certain they have gotten all of the cancer. She will begin chemo in about 3 weeks.
** Also, the weather here has been UNBELIEVABLE! Brent and I were out all night-- he cleaning the garage and me the cars. I love a good clean car!
** Also I am nearly 18 weeks and I believe this may be my last week of regular pants, as they are a bit snug. More pictures soon. I'm also feeling the baby move a lot more, which is exciting. We have received 48 votes on our "GENDER VOTE" to the right... and it is evening out at 23 for girl and 25 for boy. We only have sixteen more days until we know!! :-)