We've all been there. Whether you're trying to prepare an eloquent dinner for house guests on short notice, or whether you've procrastinated on crafting a dish for a potluck, you suddenly notice that you don't have all the ingredients that your recipe calls for. So you gotta jump into Mother MacGyver mode by improvising.
One of my go-to recipes for parties and potlucks is shredded buffalo chicken. I like shredded buffalo chicken because you can add it to almost anything. Literally. Almost. Anything. Shredded buffalo chicken goes well inside quesadillas, on top of nachos, inside tacos, hell you can even just throw it on bread and call it a sandwich. I introduced a relative to the recipe years ago, and she informed me that it goes well on salads as well. I've never tried it, because eating piles of leaves is a waste of my time. If I want any "nutrients" from shit that falls off trees, then I'll just pop some Flintstones vitamins.
Speaking of which, is it okay for adults to eat Flintstones vitamins? Let's be real here: Flintstones vitamins are the bees knees. Speaking of which, where does the saying "bees knees" even come from? Why do people call popular/cool things "bees knees"? A random ass joint on a random ass insect can't be that special. All bees are known for are making honey, pollinating, and stinging. I couldn't care less about their knees. Fuck a bee's knees.
Anyway, back to Flintstones Vitamins. According to the Flintstones Vitamins website, the chewable wonders are packed with all sorts of vitamins and minerals. So call me a child for popping a couple big fat Freds in my mouth, but they're delicious and are easier to consume than a salad. Salads often require a variety of dressings and toppings just to make them tolerable to consume, which defeat the purpose of the salad because the toppings and dressings are full of fat and calories. No thanks. Yabba dabba do that spinach and lettuce outta here!
Anyway, back to the recipe. Holy tangents did this story take some turns! Don't you just hate it when you scour Google for a particular new recipe, only to read a longwinded backstory that takes forever to get to the point? After all, you just wanted a list of ingredients with some simple instructions, not a novel from some 39 year-old trophy wife who's trying to cope with her empty nest syndrome. Not that there's anything wrong with being a "trophy wife", beauty and wealth are both qualities that people ought to admire and aspire. All I'm saying is, get to the fucking ingredients already, Tiffany. I don't need 12,000 words about how you had to improvise a chicken parmesan because you found out your son decided to visit home from college for the weekend.
That's another thing, can people stop calling chicken parmesan "chicken parm"? The meager two syllables you save isn't worth sounding like a yuppie idiot. Chicken parmesan sounds exotic, like you're about to enjoy one of the greatest things to ever come out of Italy. You assholes make it sound like some dollar store, just-add-water and throw-it-in-the-microwave knockoff when you undercut it with your bullshit abbreviation.
Anyway, back to trophy wives. I remember hearing of the concept "trophy wife" as a kid, overhearing jargon on daytime soap operas and watching rom coms, and thinking that the term meant a wife for those gold statues on top of trophies. Like a wife for the Oscar trophy. Little old me thought that trophies had families and stuff too. Kids think the darndest things, don't they!
Anyway, back to the recipe. I have to admit, I did not technically invent this recipe. I found it on the World Wide Web, and made what may appear to be a minor tweak, but trust me: It's a very important tweak! You see, I'm a big fan of shredded chicken recipes in the crockpot. I'm not much of a cook, so I prefer the simple nature of crockpot recipes. For the most part, you just toss a bunch of food into the pot, set a timer, and return 4-7 hours later for some shredding. Hell, I often leave it sitting overnight. Nothing like waking up to the smell of a spice-scented kitchen!
But a common problem I notice with shredded chicken recipes is how they measure the amount of chicken you're supposed to use. They usually recommend a particular number of breasts or half breasts. Why is this a problem? Well first, it's not entirely clear on what a half breast is. At least the packaging at the store doesn't often specify whether or not the breasts are halved or not. This can be very confusing for rookie cooks. But more importantly, it's not an accurate way to measure.
Measurement requires a consistent standard for counting units. There's this ongoing debate about whether or not Americans should switch to the Metric System, or continue with the bullshit "Standard" system of measurement, full of its arbitrary standards for converting units. Metric is simple, because whether youre measuring distance, mass, or volume, the conversions are always based on units of 10. Need to convert milliliters to liters? No problem, just divide that shit by 1000. But there are what, three teaspoons in a tablespoon? Then 16 tablespoons in a cup? Converting this shit is confusing as hell compared to the Metric System.
But it's even worse when recipes call for a measurement like "breast" or "half breast". The breasts you're buying won't always be the same exact size every time you go to the store. Imagine if aliens wanted to eat humans, and had recipes that called for human breasts or half breasts. The alien goes to Space Walmart for some boneless, skinless human breasts, and suddenly see that human breasts come in all sorts of different sizes. A-cups, B-cups, H-cups, Double Ds, and so on. The alien would be very confused. Would the dish be better with larger breasts, or smaller breasts? Or say the recipe called for entire human carcasses, and you arrived at Space Walmart only to find carcasses of all sizes, ranging from Kevin Hart to Yao Ming. After all, if you're using sauces and marinades, bigger humans would mean less flavor in the over all dish.
I myself have experienced this problem multiple times. I toss in a number of breasts without any consideration for the size, only to return six hours later to some flavor-lacking chicken. I've also had the reverse happen, when there's not enough chicken boobies and the dish turns out soupy. Fuck soup. Soup is almost as annoying as salad.
So the alteration I made is simple: Instead of measuring breasts in terms of number of breasts, I call for a measure in the weight of the total breasts. When it comes to the buffalo chicken recipe, I have found that the most desirable amount is anywhere between 3.5 and 4 pounds. By measuring by weight rather than breasts, you get much more consistent, predictable outcomes on the shredded chicken. No disappointment for you, and no awkward dinners with your friends and family because they think your dinner is mediocre but lack the confidence to be honest with you. So they begrudgingly grin at the table and say your hard-cooked meal is "fine" before desperately changing the subject to save you the embarrassment. Well too late, these feelings hurt!
Anyway, back to the recipe. Here's what you need:
-3.5 to 4 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breasts
-1 bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's buffalo wing sauce
-1 packet of ranch dressing seasoning (1 oz)
Just toss all that into a slow cooker, and put it on low heat for 6-7 hours. Then shred it all up, and think of something to put it on.
