Emergency Dinner - Broccoli Chicken

Most of you know already that I am an extremely busy, overtaxed, slightly neurotic mother of four. Two grown daughters, and twin boys that are now 2 1/2. My oldest daughter is turning 21 in a couple of weeks, my youngest daughter just graduated from high school and my boys... Well, my boys continue to try to snuff the life out of me on a daily basis. I think they may be succeeding. Sometimes I take a step back, look at myself in the mirror and laugh hysterically. What in the world was I thinking having more children at 40? I am really starting to think that women have a built in "forget" mechanism that blocks out our children's ages at 18 months - 4 years and ages 13 -17. We have to. Otherwise there would be no children on this earth. So I'm smack dab in the middle of the 18 months - 4 years category. But this time around I have been blessed with two "full steam ahead" maniacs at once. Those of you that have boys are nodding in agreement right about now.





Between the screaming and the throwing of objects, the constant protests, the refusals to nap even when their eyes are practically rolling back in their heads; the demands for "more juice!" (it's 90% water... don't get all freaky on me), the eating of rocks, prying my son's mouth open only to find "wings and legs" and the obligatory wail for having a toy snatched out of tiny hands followed by the retaliation bite and conquer, I guess I'm right where I should be... staring down the double barrel of toddlerhood at point blank range... and I think I'm out matched. Don't get me wrong. I love my kids. (when they're sleeping). :) So with my flack jacket, my toddler mace, my helmet and an occasional glass of wine, I spurn on.





I think you can actually hear the theme song from Barnum and Bailey's Circus when you walk through the front door of my house. It is a literal circus combined with a zoo and a war zone most days. Not only are the kids at a tough age but the dishes in the sink are having little dish babies right before my eyes and the laundry looks like the blob oozing out the top and spilling over the side of the basket. Seriously! We only have four people living in this house and two of them are under three feet tall. How can there be so much laundry?





So in between my usual duties: nurse maid, referee, diaper changer, taxi, nurturer, boo boo fixer, good cop/bad cop, facilitator, house keeper and physical education coordinator (not to mention jungle gym and pillow) I also have to find time to cook. Well, lately I haven't had any. So today I am happy to bring you my latest emergency dinner.

What you'll need:

A rotisserie chicken

broccoli florets

olive oil or oil of your choice

for the sauce:

5T wheat free soy sauce (I apologize to the paleo gods, but I'm not giving it up)

2tsp sesame oil

2T rice wine vinegar, no sugar, no salt version

1tsp garlic powder

1tsp ginger

1tsp honey, optional

black sesame seeds for garnish

nuts: almonds or cashews... or which ever you like

What you do:

Start by whisking up the sauce. If you are using more than half of the chicken or if you like a stronger flavor (like me), double the sauce recipe. Debone and cube up the rotisserie chicken and put it in a bowl. Poor the sauce over the chicken and let it take a little swim. Take out a large pan and get it nice and hot with your oil. Next place the raw broccoli in the pan and stir-fry it for about 3 minutes. It won't be cooked through so here's what you do next. Take a 1/3 cup of water (or chicken broth if you want to get all fancy) and poor it in. BEFORE YOU START: Have the lid to the pan in the other hand. Quickly poor in the water and cover the broccoli with the lid. Now you are steaming the broccoli but it will still have a "pan fried" taste. Take the lid off when all the water is absorbed. Stir in the chicken and heat it through.

Plate this beauty and sprinkle with black sesame seeds and a palm full of chopped nuts.

Enjoy!

Ginger Chicken -- emergency dinner

As you probably know by now an emergency dinner, according to my definition, requires no skill, almost no effort, and no time at all to get on the table. What this recipe lacks for in preparation certainly is made up in flavor. If you have a plate and can stack things on top of each other, you can make this.

This recipe was realized when I was out for lunch with my hubby and we went to Fitness Cafe in Brea. We had to laugh at the "fitness" part of it. The menu was full of pasta dishes, whole wheat bun sandwiches, spinach tortilla this and that, and the every popular... low fat cheese. Now if you operate in mainstream America these choices are certainly better than McDonalds... but "Fitness"? I'm not so sure about that.

Hubby ended up having a $15.00 steak salad which was just that. Some romaine lettuce with a big ol' slab of steak on the top a la boring! Not so much as a tomato wedge or a slice of cucumber to be found. The waitress raved about the "Tuscan dressing". I'm sure it had sugar in it.

After scouring the menu for what felt like an eternity I decided to have this wrap... unwrapped. I didn't need to eat the white flour and lard laden tortilla even if it was colored green with a little spinach juice to try to throw me off. Don't fool yourselves. Just because the tortilla is the color of a vegetable does not mean it's equal to a vegetable.

The down side was when I was done with this little number I was still starving. I added a side salad with olive oil and lemon wedges for the dressing and a side of fruit. Now that was perfect.

It really was quite tasty and would make the perfect meal in a super hurry. So here it is, complements of Fitness Cafe.

What you'll need:

Cooked chicken breast (I like Trader Joe's sliced chicken breast)

1 purple onion

pickled ginger (Asian aisle at the market or available at most health food markets)

1 avocado

What you do:

Take a little olive oil and heat it in a pan. Slice your onion super thin and saute it until it's soft. Take a plate out and put some chicken on it. Put the onion over the top of the chicken. Put the pickled ginger on top of the onion. Put the avocado on top of the ginger. EAT.

That is it for this tasty little number.

Enjoy!

Sausage and Peppers - Emergency Dinner

I'm almost embarrassed to give you this next recipe. Actually, the term "recipe" doesn't even apply here. I had one of those days yesterday. You know, the ones where you start running a few minutes late and before you know it, it's snowballed into a disaster complete with exploding laundry baskets and piles of crap everywhere. There's no food in the fridge, the dog is laying in the middle of the unmade bed with muddy paws and there is an unknown substance stuck in your sons hair? Yeah... I have those a couple of times per week. It's inevitable. With twins in multiple therapies, my own health to consider, construction going on at our house and a multitude of other obstacles, I just threw this one together... literally. I knew it would be okay though. The more my recipe blog grows, the more I hear from women (and the occasional man) that suffer the same plight. I know that we are all in this together. So file this one under emergency dinners. A Primal Mama emergency dinner consists of 5 ingredients or less and the most minimal effort possible. Getting in the car and driving thru would be a monumental task compared to this. So don't even think about it.

What you'll need:

2 onions: one white, one purple

3 bell peppers, color of your choice

2 jars of Gluten Free Marinara Sauce, 3 grams of sugar or less

(I use Trader Joe's Organic Marinara)

enough Italian Turkey Sausage links to feed your family

hot, mild or a combo of both

Italian seasoning

Your trusty crockpot

What you do:

Chop the onion and bell peppers in large chunks. You want them large because you don't want them to disintegrate from the long cooking process. Put those in the crockpot. Put your sausage on top of the veggies. Open your jars of sauce. Poor them over the top. Set the crockpot for low if you do this in the morning or high for a max of 3 hours. Serve it in a shallow bowl with a little Italian seasoning over the top for color. And that is the whole recipe. Congratulations! We've survived another day!

Enjoy

Turkey Rolls - Emergency Dinner

Ok, so tonight is not one of my more shining moments. I let the day get away from me and forgot to take something out for dinner. On top of that one of my sons has a cold and my husband is sick because he thought he could do five rounds of max reps, body weight bench press and max rep pull-ups on a lettuce leaf and an ice cube. (Not really, but he didn't fuel properly for the workout today). On top of that my other son is whiny. So what's a woman to do when all hell has broken loose at home and there's nothing to eat for dinner? I say go to DEFCON 1 immediately. No that does not mean head out of the house like a missile and grab the nearest burger and fries. It means go to the fridge, whip out a few ingredients and make a nutritious meal in under 3 minutes.

Here's what you'll need:

turkey lunch meat

avocado

preservative free turkey bacon

Here's what to do:

Put out the turkey. Place some sliced avocado on top of the turkey. Take a piece of bacon and cut it lengthwise and put half a slice on the avocado. Roll up the turkey slices individually with the avocado and bacon inside. Done. Add a piece of fruit. It's not glamorous, but hey, sometimes you just need to get some calories in, right?