Contest Entry #6

Tonight's supper was disastrous. Luckily, it was not the fault of the recipe. Circumstances beyond our control made for a very unhappy mealtime. Let me explain.



My daughter had to be somewhere at 5:30pm, so I started making supper around 4:45pm (luckily tonight's recipe is a quicky!) I asked her to get ready while I made supper, and as she took off the hockey jersey she wore to school today (she wanted it because they were going skating, and surprisingly, she can still fit into the jersey Montreal Canadiens jersey she got when she was 1 year old) she snagged her earrings and let out a blood-curdling scream. Why oh why did we bother getting her ears pierced in the fall? Big mistake. Anyway, I had to clean her ears and wipe her tears, which brings us to about 5:15pm. Supper had finished simmering on the stove, so I tossed together her plate and she ate for 5 minutes and then had to go.

My son's afternoon was not much better. He got home from school, tossed all his stuff in the hallway, undressed himself for some reason, and told me he was not going to put anything away. I ignored him and got a snack ready for the other kids that come over after school. When my son told me that I was mean for taking his orange out of his backpack (which I was only doing so that I could put it on a plate for him to have as a snack), I put him in his room where he stayed for the next half hour or so. When he came out, he informed me that he was hungry, he hates oranges, and if I don't give him something else he's going to throw stuff and break the house. Well I promptly made him his favourite snack, because I didn't want him breaking the house. (If you believe that, you don't know me very well.) No, actually, I politely informed him that he could eat his orange, or he could wait for supper, and if he did throw things around he would be sent to bed without any supper. Then I ignored him some more while I made supper.

So while my daughter is woofing down her food, my son gets to the table and says he's not eating, even though he loves porkchops, rice, and peas (which is exactly what was on his plate.) At this point I gave up. I sat down and ate my supper (which was very yummy!) and I'm hanging up my parenting hat for the night.



Now that we've gotten through all that, let me tell you about tonight's recipe. It was sent to me by my friend Kristin, who I also met online through Babycenter. Kristin says that her family absolutely loves this recipe, and I was anxious to try it out because it looked so simple and quick and (normally) my kids would go nuts over something like this. She uses chicken, but I'm going to cook a turkey tomorrow so I decided to use porkchops instead of going into poultry overload for the rest of the week.


GARLIC CHICKEN (OR PORK) RISOTTO
1 lb. chicken (or pork), seasoned with salt & pepper
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. butter
2 garlic cloves, minced or crushed
2 c. water
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup
2 c. Instant Rice
1 c. frozen peas

Pound chicken flat and season both sides with salt and pepper. (I just seasoned the porkchops.) Heat oil, butter, and garlic in a large skillet over medium-high heat until you get a golden brown color in the garlic. Add chicken and cook until the chicken is also golden brown (about 5 minutes per side). Cook until no longer pink in the middle. Set cooked chicken on a plate. Deglaze the pan with the water. Whisk in the soups and heat to a boil. Stir in rice and peas and top with chicken. Cover and cook over low heat for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand for 5 minutes before serving.

Under normal circumstances, this would have been an insanely quick and easy meal to prepare. My kids love all the ingredients (except my daughter who hates peas, but they are easy to pick out.) I thoroughly enjoyed my supper tonight (partially because it was tasty, partially because I only had one dish to clean up in the kitchen, and partially because everyone had left the table already.)

Thanks for the recipe, Kristin!