Chicken Breast Fillets Topped with Sauerkraut and Black-Eyed Peas

For a culinary enthusiast, I'm dirt poor. That's one of the more selfish reasons that I embrace a primarily-local diet: It frustrates me to see food everywhere that I can't have, and my goal is to make folks equally jealous of whatever I grow on the cheap in my own yard. Since that day has not yet come, I invite you to take a gander at what I did with the rest of the black-eyed peas I soaked for this recipe. It may not make you jealous (depending on your background, it may make you all the more grateful for what you have). But it did satisfy me to know I can whip up a wholesome, mostly-local, mostly-organic entree for pennies.

Chicken Breast Fillets Topped with Sauerkraut and Black-Eyed Peas

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp. butter from a stick that you've had in your fridge for 3 weeks (so it doesn't count as an expense per se)

1/2 c. sauerkraut that your buddy made you with the cabbage he grew in his garden

1 c. stock that you've had in your freezer for 2 weeks

1 chicken breast that you had in your freezer for 2 months

1 c. reconstituted dried black-eyed peas that you gave in and bought at Publix

Sea salt that you boiled down yourself from ocean water to taste

Pepper that you've had in your pantry since before you cared where your condiments came from to taste

Directions:

Thaw the chicken breast. Preferably 24 hours in advance (but if necessary at the last second), halve it and rub both fillets with sea salt and pepper to taste. Cover and put in the fridge until ready to cook.

Thaw the chicken stock in a small saucepan. Add the black-eyed peas. Cover and simmer over medium-low heat until the chicken stock has almost evaporated (the liquid should not entirely cover the bottom of the pan). Remove from heat and toss beans well with the kraut. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a frying pan and pan-fry the chicken breast halves until cooked through, about 4-5 minutes on each side. Plate and top with beans-n-kraut mixture. Serves 2 broke culinary enthusiasts.

And as if I could beat the white-trashiness of this recipe, can you guess why we dragged a buddy with a pickup truck out dumpster-diving for these carpet remnants in the dead of night?

Hint #1: I'm very, very psyched.

Hint #2:

Answer will be given whensoever I's done kickin' back on the porch drinkin' a birr with six-er-seven loyal mangy mutts curled 'round my clodhoppery doodads.

Beat the eggs. Whip the cream. Show no mercy.