Hey friends! Remember me? Whew – life has been a bit hectic lately. We just finished up basketball with the 6 year old on Saturday and baseball started yesterday. And I’m talking real baseball. No more tee. No more 45 minute “practice”. Real deal hour and a half long practice, hitting a pitched (well, off a pitching machine) ball and playing actual positions. And boy  does that ball come quick. I was shocked. Jack struggled of course. It’s hard to go from a tee where the ball is right there just waiting to be hit, to an actual live ball. He had no idea when to swing, he was always about 5 seconds too late. Poor buddy! He’ll get the hang of it though. I come from a long line of baseball players so I have faith that Jack will figure this out.

I did manage to crank out some meals the last few days. I think we left off on Saturday when Mr. Wonderful was grilling steak. We bought some big a$$ porterhouses that cost an arm and a leg and hubby grilled them to medium rare perfection. We all stuffed ourselves on beef, roasted asparagus and oven roasted potatoes. It was a magical night of eating. But, of course, the magic couldn’t last. Since we splurged so much Saturday night, hubby insisted we have leftovers Sunday night. Only issue (a little bit more than minor in my opinion) was that there was only meatloaf leftover. And only enough for 1 person. And guess who the 1 person was that got the meatloaf (hint: it wasn’t me (or Shaggy) – oh dear, I’m showing my age). If you guessed the man that insisted we have leftovers for dinner, ding, ding, ding, you win. There’s no prize other than knowing that you were right, but congratulations anyway! So, the poor kids got frozen chicken nuggets (calm down, I didn’t make them eat them frozen – I nuked ’em like any self-respectable mom would do – I can’t wait to get my “Mom” blue ribbon that I know will be coming for all this amazing momming I’m constantly doing) and peas and carrots. So that left me with nothing to eat. I did steal a couple bites of the meatloaf (still delicious) and then heated myself some cheese ravioli. It was a crap night of food.

But I redeemed myself Monday. I made a one pot chicken alfredo with roasted broccoli (yes we just had that, but I’m pretty certain no one ever od’d on broccoli) and Italian bread. It was tasty! Jack liked to so much he had seconds (and then had it again last night because last night’s dinner was too spicy for him he claimed and I didn’t  feel like arguing and sometimes you just have to do what’s easy (not too often though), especially when your husband is at class all night and you’ve just come from real baseball practice where you chased a 17 month old around nearly the entire time because of course the field is right on the highway (helllooooo run on sentence) and even though you dropped him with your inlaws so you could watch practice in peace he was brought back after 20 minutes). Whew! I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to Monday night – one pot chicken alfredo. Easy! Delicious! Not altogether healthy! Easier clean up because, hello, one pot! (I loathe doing dishes but never relinquish control of the kitchen because I’m crazy that way). Anywho…here’s the recipe

Ingredients:

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (cut into chunks)

salt & pepper (not to be confused with Salt & Peppa)

1 1/2 tsp minced garlic (I used closer to 2 tsp)

1 1/2 cups chicken stock

1 cup heavy cream (I used more and will tell you why in a bit)

1 fresh basil sprig (I used 2)

1/2 lb uncooked pasta

Olive oil (a couple tbsps)

2 cups grated parmesan

Directions:

Season chicken with salt and pepper. I also seasoned mine with basil. Brown chicken in olive oil on medium high heat (don’t do it too long, the chicken continues to cook the whole time so you don’t want to dry it out). Add garlic and saute until fragrant. Add chicken stock, cream and uncooked pasta. Stir to combine. Add basil sprig(s); bring to a boil then cover and reduce  to a simmer. Simmer 15-20 min or until pasta is tender. Remove sprig; mix in parmesan cheese. Now, 2 cups of parmesan cheese is a lot. I suggest either cutting back on the cheese or make sure you add more heavy cream after you mix in the cheese. My pasta go super dried out after I added the cheese but after I added more cream (or milk would work too) it moistened right back up and tasted yummy to my tummy!

Yesterday we had baseball practice so I made a stacked enchilada dinner in the crockpot. Hubby and I loved it. Colt loved it. And as I said earlier Jack thought it “doesn’t taste bad but is too spicy”. I’ll share that recipe with you tomorrow coz I gotta go get my yoga on before Thing 1 gets home and Thing 2 wakes up. Until then…xoxo

PS – This afternoon we have a play date at the beach and hubby has class so I won’t be cooking tonight. Yay me!!!!

  
Look! A picture! Not a good one but beggars can’t be choosers, eh?!