Easy as Chicken

Sometimes you spend your weekend devising a lovely and nourishing meal plan for your coming week, which you then shop for and execute to utter perfection and everyone's happy and well-fed all week long and birds sing and the weather is perfect and everyone tells you you're pretty. And sometimes the universe has other plans for you and you muddle through until Wednesday or Thursday and then find yourself standing in front of an open refrigerator asking out loud to absolutely no one just what in the hell you're supposed to do with these #$%*&#$% chicken breasts. And by "you" in that second sentence I mean "me."

At one point in my life, when this would happen I would generally say "screw it" and just eat popcorn for dinner instead (I don't recommend this in the least, but I'm all about being honest with you here). But then an excellent thing happened to me in the form of this link right here: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/02/05/magazine/simple-chicken-recipes.html?ref=magazine&_r=1&  Nine crazy-easy, delicious chicken recipes with infinite possibilities for adaptation, courtesy of Mark Bittman, the genius behind "How To Cook Everything" (and by the way, if you don't already own a copy of "How To Cook Everything" put it on your list. It's the best cookbook ever and it might literally change your life, no joke. I am not being paid to say that, I seriously just love it that much). 

Choose whichever recipe goes best with whatever else you have on hand, make a little extra to have leftovers on hand for lunch the next day, and you'll feel like a super-efficient grown-up person who really has their act together! And who can ask for much more than that, really?

Tomorrow I'll be talking about the next thing you can do to improve your entire situation, now that you've got your breathing sorted out. I know, it's all very exciting. See you then.

- Sarah

P.S. I just realized that this entire post reads like a sales pitch. It's not. Neither Mark Bittman nor anyone at the New York Times has any idea who I am (or if they do I don't know about it), it's just that that set of recipes has become my go-to for staving off the mid-week food-related doldrums and I hope it can do the same for you. Cheers!