Chicken with bacon, broccoli, and foil packet root veggies!!!

For this meal I started off with one large potato, 2 medium carrots, and half a small onion. The root veggies were cut into 1/4" cubes and tossed with some butter, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  This all went into a foil packet, made by folding a piece of foil in half and then folding the edges over to close them. This packet was placed in a preheated 350* oven  and a timer was set for 30 mins. Depending on how well you construct your pouch you may wanna put a pan under it, just in case there are any drips. 

 Next came 2 slices of bacon cut into 1/4" strips. The bacon is added to a cast iron pan, over medium heat, to start rendering out its fat and to crisp the pieces up. 

 While the bacon cooks, debone and remove the skin from 2 chicken leg quarters. Then cut the chicken into bite size pieces. Season liberally with your preferred seasoning mix (I used Montreal steak, a little bit of salt, and garlic powder on mine) and add it to the pan when your bacon is halfway cooked. 

Move the bacon to one side of the pan and turn your heat up to medium high. Like most of my meats, I only want to flip the chicken once, so I try to make sure that I put the largest surface of each piece down in the pan. This also give me a nice amount of browning without overcooking or drying out the meat. 

Once the chicken is browned on both sides, I added two handfuls of frozen broccoli, about 7oz. Not only does the little bit of ice on the broccoli create steam to help it cook, but it also deglazes the pan so you get all the flavor from the bacon and chicken in the broccoli too. 

My 30min alarm was going off around this time so I turned off the oven, but left the pouch in there. You really don't have to worry about anything in there burning so you can just let them stay warm in the oven.

Throw a lid on it and let the steam finish it off. With a cast iron pan like this there is plenty of heat left in the pan to finish cooking the broccoli, so I turned my stove off.

Check your broccoli for doneness after a few minutes and it should look something like this. A nice, bright green color and the broccoli shouldn't be mushy.  

Now that, the stuff in the pan is done, we can turn our attention to the packet of goodies in the oven. Carefully remove it from the oven, to a plate or cutting board. Unfold one of the seams and pull the pouch open. Watch out for all that delicious smelling steam, it's HOT!  I like to serve it with a little more butter on top and a little more salt and fresh ground pepper.

Cost Breakdown:

Chicken - 1.80lb @ $.89/lb = $1.60

Broccoli - 7oz @ $1.50  for 14 oz = $.75

Bacon - .25lb @ $.50/lb = $.44

Butter - 3T @ $2.50/lb = $.32

Carrots - 5oz @ 1.70 for 2lb = $.25

Potato - .5lb @ 5lbs for $2.50 = $.25

Onion - 2oz @ 6lb for $4.00 = $.08

Total = $3.69

if you divide that by 2.5 servings it's only $1.47 per serving!!

Here's the finished dish.  This recipe made enough for me to have a second helping and still have enough left over for another meal. Cheap, easy, and delicious, what more can you ask for?  Hope you enjoyed reading and please don't forget to comment and share!!