I did it again...

...I made up a recipe on the fly because I was starving and I didn't have a dinner plan.

I wonder sometimes if I'm the only working mom that ever happens to...I mean, I try really hard to plan dinners ahead of time. Sometimes though, I forget to pull something out of the freezer, and I find myself stuck. Like I did the other night, when I came home from work famished and I had nothing in the bullpen.

So I grabbed a bag of chicken tenders from the freezer and threw them into the microwave to defrost. I figureI can do anything with a few pieces of chicken. I looked on a few websites for inspiration, and I came across a recipe for a saucy kind of chicken but I didn't have all of the ingredients. It sounded relatively interesting though, so I decided to improvise and work with what I had. The results were fabulous.

I call it Sweet and Saucy Chicken.

It's totally yummy.

Even Maddie loved it, and she claims to not like mustard.

While I was making this up, Andrew was manning the other side of the stove.

He had decided to make himself a quesadilla. Problem was, he didn't know how.

"Um, Mom? Do you know how to make quesadillas?"

So I'm showing him how to make those while at the same time trying to make something out of this sizzling chicken in the pan in front of me. Maddie walks into the kitchen and she says, "what are you making?" I said, "I don't really know yet." 

She didn't look too concerned. I mean after all, the last time I said that, we ended up with Spicy Tortilla Pizza. That was a good thing.

The best part of the night was not when we ate dinner and enjoyed every bite, it was when Maddie and Andrew were hanging out with me in the kitchen, and Andrew's holding the spatula over the pan of quesadillas, and I'm stirring a pan of who-really-knows-what-for-sure, and Maddie is jokey and laughy and then Andrew says, "this is awesome."

yeah.

Sweet and Spicy Chicken
(from memory. pardon the lack of measurements.)

3 or 4 pieces of uncooked chicken tenders

2 T butter

Handful of brown sugar

Squirt of mustard

Jar of Spike's black bean and corn salsa, medium 

Shredded cheese
Tortilla strips

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the brown sugar and mustard. Stir until the sugar begins to melt and dissolve into sauce. Keep stirring. It will begin to thicken.

Add the raw chicken pieces and cook them in the sauce, turning often. The sauce will begin to brown, that's ok. I dice the chicken up with a spatula while it's cooking.

Add the jar of salsa over the top of the chicken and sauce. Stir well.

Cook until heated through. Serve over brown rice.

Sprinkle with cheese and top with tortilla strips.

This was so good that the girls actually scrapped every grain of rice from their plates. Hannah offered to eat whatever Maddie couldn't finish, but Maddie finished every bite. YUM!

I LOVE to cook with the kids! It is one of the bestest things in the world to be in the kitchen together with them.