Fight Trumpflation! Chop your own chicken!!

I have this really bad feeling that it’s going to get worse before we even THINK it will get better. And in these times of stress and strife, you and I have to work within what we can. And unfortunately, that means higher prices and fewer options.

And yeah, we can blame the Orange Goblin in the White House for that.

So while I’m trying to rationalize eggs that are now being sold in six-pack containers at the grocery store (and that’s not including places where they actually ration how many eggs you can purchase, i.e., Trader Joe’s limiting you to one dozen eggs per visit), I’m looking at more bachelor cooking options to provide me with solid nutrition at non-wallet-smashing prices.

And for me, that’s going to include buying – and breaking down – a whole chicken.

I look at it this way. A pack of boneless chicken breasts runs about $8. Chicken legs? Maybe about another $8.

But I can purchase this little birdie – all plucked and ready for the butcher knife – for $7.

In other words, this bird already has two or three meals for me, and my wallet’s already in the black.

And trust me … before I even took a knife out of my butcher block … I watched at least a dozen different videos on how to break down a chicken. And I figured I’d start as easy as possible.

I cut the plastic open. Out flopped the chicken. Now this chicken has some parts that I don’t need right now, including that little paper bag inside with the chicken’s heart, its kidneys, and its liver. No, I’m not making any giblet gravy just yet. I really need to focus on this simple stuff before I start messing around with giblet gravy.

Started with the legs. Sliced open the skin. The chicken’s skin, not mine. Popped the hip joints. Sliced off the legs and thighs. Put them in a resealable plastic bag.

Then went to the wings. Chopped off the wings, clipped the tips, put the wings in that same bag. Again … we start simple.

Now all I have is the breast, the backbone, and what I think is the chicken’s neck. And although I could have saved the backbone for a “make your own stock” recipe – I’m not ready for that stage just yet. Let me get comfortable breaking this chicken down to the meats I can comprehend first, then we’ll talk about chicken stock. Same thing with the chicken neck. Maybe someday I’ll figure out how to make southern fried gizzards, but not today.

I freed the breasts from the backbone, and then freed the little chicken tenders from the inside of the breasts.

And in the end … here’s where I’m at.

Okay, I’m not Gordon Ramsay and I’m not Julia Child. But this is my first time cutting up an animal of any sort. And no, I didn’t dissect frogs in biology class.

I sliced up the chicken tenders and coated them with a little Shake ‘n Bake (which, by the way, is getting hella expensive these days – $4 for a pack of two pouches, and they don’t even give you the plastic shaking bags any more). Just another example of Trumpflation.

And with that in mind … here’s the finished meal.

There you go. A tasty treat that doesn’t break your bank. Even if you have to do a little sweat equity in the kitchen to make it happen. And it’s a lot cheaper than ordering out from KFC or Popeye’s. And I’m sure as hell never ordering at Chick-fil-A. So there’s that.

Trust me. I hate that we have to deal with Trumpflation. I hate it. But it’s here. Whether we like it or not. Ugh.

But at least I can still eat some chicken without taking out a bank loan.