Pulled chicken sandwiches

Tuesday's dinner is pulled chicken sandwiches with raw veggies.  This meal takes a bit longer to make since you are making homemade crusty rolls to go with it.  This not only saves you money, but tastes WAY better!

Here is the recipe:  Tuesday's Pulled Chicken Sandwiches with homemade crusty rolls.

Crusty roll ingredients:

- 1 cup warm water
- 1 tbsp active dry yeast
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 2 tbsp shortening
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 egg whites
- 2 cup white flour
- 1.5 cups whole wheat flour

Combine warm water, yeast and sugar and let sit for 5 minutes, until the yeast has proofed.  I do this in my Bosch mixer.  You know it is ready when it is thick and foamy!   Then add your shortening, salt and whole wheat flour and beat until smooth.  Add your egg whites and mix well.  Then add in your white flour to form a soft dough.  Knead until smooth and elastic (about 6-8 minutes).  This dough will be stiff.  This is where the Bosch mixer comes in handy!  Then place in a greased bowl and flip once to grease the top.  Cover and let rise until doubled (about an hour).  Punch dough down and divide into 12 pieces (or 24 if you want small buns).  Shape into balls and place 2 inches apart on a parchment lined baking sheet.  Allow to rise until doubled (about 30 minutes.).  Now you want to place a large shallow baking pan filled with water on the lowest rack in your oven.  You will bake the rolls on the middle rack at 425 degrees F for about 10 minutes until the rolls are golden brown.  Check after about 8 minutes though in case your oven cooks fast!  Set rolls out to cook on a rack and once cooled, I usually place in a bag or in a tea towel lined bowl and cover until dinner.


Now for the pulled Chicken part!

- 3 chicken breasts
- 1 bottle of chicken and rib sauce
- 1/4 cup zuchinni/cauliflour puree
- 1/2 cup carrot/sweet potato puree
- 1/4 cup spinach/peas/broccoli puree

Once your bread is on the kneading process in your mixer (if you have one), get out 3 chicken breasts that are thawed and place in a slow cooker.  Cook naked chicken on HIGH for 1 hour in the slowcooker.  Meanwhile, in a seperate bowl mix purees and sauce until well mixed.  After an hour, pour over your chicken breasts and turn down to LOW for about 3 hours.  Once cooked, take the chicken out and use 2 forks to pull it apart.  Return to slow cooker and mix with sauce.  (If you are not at home, you can simply combine all and put in slowcooker on lowest setting for 8 hours.) 

Serve over your fresh rolls.  I usually cut up some raw veggies to be enjoyed with this meal.  Tonight we are going to have cucumber, celery and carrots.  Just pick some veggies that you enjoy and if your kids balk at them at least you have comfort that the chicken sauce has pureed veggies in it!


The approximate cost of this meal is:

$7.00 for the chicken breasts
$1.50 for the BBQ sauce
$1.00 for the 1 cup of pureed veggies
$1.00 for the raw veggies
$0.50 for the homemade buns

Total cost: $11.00.  This fed our family of 6 (7 - but Benji is just a nursling) perfectly!  So this makes each serving cost $1.83.  Can't beat that price for a filling meal!  This fed us each 2 sandwiches and a bunch of raw veggies.  We had water to drink. 

Enjoy!