Knee Deep In Chicken....

Today I picked up my very first order from Zaycon.  Have you heard of them before?  Its a nationwide company that offers deep discounts on meats sold in bulk.  Before you run away scared that the quality of meat is probably awful, listen to me.  I did lots of research before ordering.  Zaycon has GREAT reviews! I only read one blogger who gave it a "bad" review and that was because of delivery issues not the actual meat.  I also have a bunch of friends who have been ordering from Zaycon for years and love it.  Google it and you'll see what i mean :)

I was kind of dreading the pickup since I had never done it before.  I had ordered a 40lb box of boneless skinless chicken breasts at $1.89lb.  I wasn't sure how the pickup worked.  Would I have to carry a 40lb box of raw chicken back to my car? Plus, I had a car full of little kiddos and grandma.  Our pickup was between 2 and 2:30...if you were late, well, your chicken would probably be donated.  I put the address in my gps.  It was only about 20 minutes away so that's not that bad.  To keep prices low Zaycon invites churches or other businesses to be a pickup location.  I pull into the church parking lot and right away I see the Zaycon truck and a line of cars.  To my surprise, I don't even have to get out of the car!  I waited in the car line.  When it was my turn I told the guy my last name and he got a box of chicken out of the truck.   He put it in my car. Yay!  He even laid a piece of plastic down before placing the chicken down.  It was awesome!  I thought I would be in a long line of people waiting forever but I was done in 5 minutes!

The chicken comes packaged in 4 bags.  First, I took about 15-20lbs of chicken put them in two pots with onion, garlic, carrots, and celery and covered it with water.  I put them on to boil. (Side note, these are some of the biggest chicken breast I have ever seen before!)

They had hardly any fat on them.  They were very well trimmed which made it a lot easier on me.  I trimmed the remaining fat and my mom wrapped them in paper and plastic wrap.  We didn't weigh them but I guess that each breast was 1-1.5lbs each.  We wrapped them individually because one would make a meal for our families.  I did cut a couple of them into chunks.  After we got all the raw chicken packaged and in the freezer I checked on the boiling chicken.  I pulled the chicken out and put it in a bowl.  Then I used the hand mixer to shred it.  (It sounds weird but it really works!)

We put the shredded chicken into labeled baggies and into the freezer.

We used a slotted spoon to get the vegetables out of the stock.  I put some cheese cloth over a strainer and poured the stock through it.  While I waited for it to cool I set the containers out.  I found these 16oz food storage containers on Amazon $13.95 for 36.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M9Z4SXY?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00 Great deal!  My mom ladled the stock into each cup slowly.  We got 19 16oz containers and 1 32oz!!  Happy dance!

It took about 3hrs to do all this.  I was very lucky to have my sister helping to watch the 3 kiddos :)  My mom and I will split everything and end up with roughly 20lbs of chicken and 1.5 gallons of chicken stock each!

I loved my experience with Zaycon!! I haven't tasted the chicken yet but it looked like great quality chicken. I have already ordered my 40lbs of 80/20 ground beef! I definitely recommend Zaycon so give them a try!  Here is my referral link... zayconfresh.com/refer/zf63553

Thanks for reading! :)
Jessica