Dinner, the easy way…

The last few weeks have been a bit of a blur for me.  My partner is often away for work. Usually it’s two-three days at the most.  This time it’s different.  He’s in Europe on business (and pleasure!) and he’ll be gone for 4 weeks in total.  Today marks the end of the third week.  He was due to return tomorrow, but is staying away an extra week. Lucky him!

Tonight I had to pick up my eldest from a play date at his friend’s house at 5:30, right in the middle of dinner prep.  Whilst doing the food shop today I picked up some chicken schnitzel at the butcher.  For anyone who knows me, this is unusual.  Normally I would buy the chicken and crumb it myself but after three weeks of solo parenting whilst also going to school three days a week, I was looking for something quick.  So at about 5 pm I decided I should get dinner organised.  Obviously chicken schnitzel was on the menu, but the last few times I’ve cooked it, I’ve found it a bit oily.  I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately about paleo diets and not using processed oils, so I needed another way to cook my schnitzel.  Why not cook it in the oven, so I Googled and came up with this recipe.  It solved both my problems of frying and using oil.  Fantastic, Butter Baked Chicken Schnitzel.

Whilst searching for recipes I came across a Jill Dupleix recipe for Chicken Parmigiana  which took my fancy, so by combining the two recipes, and steaming some vegies, I had dinner on the table in half an hour of arriving home. As I don’t have a microwave, this was a bit of an achievement. I made the sauce from Jill Dupleix’s recipe. It took 5 minutes to chop the garlic (and onion, not in her recipe, as I realised after I’d chopped half of it!).  Then I threw the lot in a saucepan, brought it to the boil and simmered for 20 minutes.  That was done before leaving to collect son number one.

When we got back, I put the potatoes in the bottom of the steamer, covered them with water and brought them to the boil.  I brushed the crumbed schnitzel with butter, put them on an oven tray and baked in a hot oven for 10 minutes.   By the time they were ready to turn, the potatoes were almost done, so I put the broccoli, cauliflower and carrots on to  steam.

The kids all turned up their noses at the idea of chicken parmagiana, so I was on my own. I put the sauce and cheese on one lonely schnitzel and put under the grill while I served up the kids meals.  Being 3, 5 and 8 they like their food to be simple.  I need a bit more flavour.  It turned out to be a delicious meal with a minimum of stress, just what I needed.