Photo by Daniil Silantev on Unsplash
Recently, I was speaking to a young working mom about life balance and creating a healthy and happy life for your loved ones. We talked about balancing the demands of school and work, while making sure your family created time for the good things in life and for each other. I was a single working mom for most of my child-rearing years and one of my greatest challenges as a mother was to provide good nutrition for my children. To add even more pressure, I’m a nurse and a virgo. Nurses are all about health and virgos are health freaks. We look at everything for it’s healthy value. Will this make me feel good? How will it impact my body, energy and my well-being?
So dinner was always a challenge. Each night I was usually exhausted from working hard and trying to be a good employee, while simultaneously coordinating good daycare, fun filled weekends, finding the right school, after school activities and training my children to evolve into happy and healthy adults. I soon realized that I had to plan. How could I create something that didn’t require a lot of organization and thought, but tasted and felt like I did? A meal that delivered good nutrition, but was delicious as well.
Well my first epiphany was the fajita. My sister, a medical resident at that time and with jam-packed days worse than mine, had me over for dinner. We went to the grocery store first, where I followed her and her fiance around the aisles. I watched them argue and debate the finer points of grocery fare. Finally they picked the ingredients for what they told me were fajita, which consisted of everything you ever needed for a healthy and delicious dinner. My sisters and I were raised that a healthy meal included meat, vegatables and starch. So our starch was the tortillas, boneless skinless chicken breast was the meat(protein) and then the colorful peppers and onions were the vegetables. We purchased the lot and made our way home. My sister and her honey hit the kitchen and step-by-step showed me how to whip up this quick and easy dinner. Just chop up the meat and veggies, sautee and brown them in the oil of your choice with your favorite seasoning, wrap in a tortilla and you were good to go.
Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash
So, I started utilizing this for my family dinners. I guess I utilized it a lot, because one day when my kids asked me whats for dinner and I lovingly responded, “fajitas.” They look back at me with serious faces and uttered the dreaded “again?”
I was bummed, I realized I was going to have to anti-up and get creative. So, I took the challenge and created the best lazy dinner ever and here I am presenting it to you. I love this dinner. It has the protein, the veggies and the starch(now known as carbs), that was drilled into me was the healthiest dinner ever. It’s takes about five minutes to prepare and maybe 20 minutes to bake and you don’t have to watch it. So, here it goes.
You take one defrosted, organic, boneless chicken breast. Oil both sides of the chicken breast, I like coconut oil, because it softens the meat and compliments the taste. If you use your hands, wash them thouroughly after to remove any bacteria.
The next step is to season the chicken breast. I like to use a prepared seasoning thats a mixture of garlic salt, lemon pepper, paprika and oregano. I lightly season both sides of the chicken breast for maximum flavor.
Place the chicken breast in a pan lined with foil or parchment paper (depending how organic you are feeling).
Take a bag of frozen seasoned potatoes or rice and dump the bag over and around the chicken.
Next set the oven at 350 and put the dish in the oven.
For your veggies, pick your favorite and place it in a steamer on the stove top.
Now walk away.
Return to the kitchen in ten minutes and turn the chicken and turn off the steamer. Walk away again.
In another ten minutes go back to the Kitchen. By this time, your kitchen and maybe your whole house will be filled with the enticing aromas of herb-baked chicken, roasted potatoes or rice and fresh steamy vegetables.
Remove the dish from the oven and serve with the steamed vegetables.
So when I’m really tired, but I know I have to eat and eat well if I want to keep up the pace, this is my current go to dinner. For those days in the middle of the week, have this meal before eight in the evening, stop when you are full and don’t eat again that evening. You will wake up with a fairly reduced belly feeling fresh and strengthened.
