Back to School

Yesterday marked the first day of school for most kids. My son began a new classroom at his daycare and I began taking a class towards a masters in healthcare administration. Feels good to learn again.

In making dinner last night, I learned that I really do have some cooking skills. I was able to come up with a healthy dinner, cook it and serve it within 20 minutes - all while chasing a toddler and trying to entertain my sister-in-law and her friend.

Vanessa's Quick Chicken and Watercress Dinner

Ingredients:
1 pkg of chicken cutlets (usually 4 in a pkg)
1 cup flour
2 eggs
splash of milk
bag of watercress
2 Tbsp. dijon mustard
vinegar
oil
2 garlic cloves pressed (optional)
white wine (optional)
lemon juice
cucumber (optional)

Directions:

1. Defrost chicken.
2. While the chicken defrosts, in a small bowl mix dijon mustard, pressed garlic cloves, splash of oil and splash of vinegar. Wisk together.
3. Cut open bag of watercress and put in bowl.
4. Beat two eggs and a splash of milk in a pie pan.
5. Put flour in another pie pan. Season with salt/pepper or however you wish.
6. Heat a large pan on med. high heat with canola oil (it won't smoke like olive oil)
7. Dredge chicken in eggs, then flour.
8. Place all four pieces of chicken in pan and cook for about 2-3 minutes on each side.
9. Cut cucumber for salad and put in bowl with watercress.
10. Pour in about a 1/2 up of lemon juice in pan with the chicken.
11. Pour in wine too. Just eyeball it. Probably about 1/2 cup or so.
12. Let it cook off and it's ready.
13. Mix the dijon dressing you made in steps #1 and #2 into the watercress salad. Mix well.

Serves 3-4 people.

Enjoy!!

Thank God for Weekends!

The weekend can't come soon enough. With a child ill the past two days, all those things you mean to do get put on hold and you roll with the punches. To top it off, the husband is working on a project that requires a lot of his attention, so he's been working a lot - we know what that means? No breaks for me!


Despite having to take the last two days off work, I still managed to do some work from home as to not deplete my vacation time sitting at home, but actually having a vacation. We actually do have a vacation planned, but it took lots of poking and prodding on my part. We're heading to Costa Rica for 4 days. Lucky for me, my mother-in-law can come stay while we are away and we can actually enjoy a quiet breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as sleeping in and well... just some time alone is quite valuable these days.


As a working mom I have come up with some rather innovative dinners (that does not necessisarily mean healthy, but I try) that I can prepare in about 20 minutes (move over Rachael Ray!). One dish that got rave reviews from my husband (and myself) was something I kind of just threw together and I wanted to share.


Buffalo Chicken Wraps
7 - Boneless Buffalo Chicken Strips
salad in a bag
matchstick carrotts (already cut!)
celery (already cut!)
Spinach wraps
Ranch dressing (or Blue Cheese)


Cook strips as directed (approx. 17 min). When ready, cut chicken into strips and assemble the wrap. This made four wraps - we had it for dinner and then we each had lunch the next day.