Here is a perfect recipe for you to make with some of that extra chicken you grilled last week and then put into the freezer. Remember? Did you do that?

Even if you didn’t, you can grill yourself up some chicken breasts for this so-easy-it-shouldn’t-even-be-called-a-recipe recipe.

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Everyone loves a parfait. Isn’t that what Donkey says in the Shrek movie? And just think, you can use the movie tie in to actually get your kids to eat the healthy yogurt parfait.

But what exactly is a parfait?

Behold, the layered goodness that is the parfait.
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Nataly emailed me last week asking if I had any no cook recipes in my repertoire and could I pretty please share them.

My first thought was, “Well, I can pour a mean bowl of cereal!” Because who among us doesn’t try to convince our children that it was THEIR idea to have a bowl of cereal for dinner every now and then.

But I got thinking about summer schedules and the heat and how most of us want to be out enjoying the weather, not tied to our hot stoves once we get home from work. So I thought I would offer up some tips to making summer cooking easier.
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In the warmer weather I am always on the look out for things to make for dinner which don’t require: a) lots of time spent in the kitchen, b) slaving away over a hot stove, and c) running out to the grocery store. Basically recipes that allow be to make something yummy in spite of my over all laziness.
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I have posted this recipe in a different incarnation by cooking it all in the crockpot. Even though the ingredients are essentially the same, the result is a completely different meal. The chicken cooked in a crockpot can be shredded and used in tortilla shells or eaten with chips. The chicken in this recipe stays whole.  In grilling weather you can also put these ingredients in tin foil packets and cook it on the grill.

You will need:

Chicken: breast or legs, bone in or out
Salsa or picante sauce
2 cans of Black beans
Shredded cheese

First, pour your salsa or picante sauce into the bottom of your baking dish. How ever much you need. I wanted there to be extra so I could mix it in with the brown rice I was also cooking and have a spicy mexican rice to go along with the chicken.

Then I fillet the chicken breast, like I always do, to cut down on the cook time and the chances of the breasts getting dried out on the outside, yet still being raw on the inside.

Lay them on top of the salsa.

Put it in the oven at 350 for 25 minutes.

After 25 minutes, remove from the oven and pour your black beans in the baking dish. Pop it back in the oven for 10 minutes.

Don’t you love my pot holders?  One of my children went through a phase where he could not make enough of these.  He made them constantly .  And being ever so helpful he threw away all the other pot holders and mitts that we owned.

Take it out again and sprinkle the top with shredded cheese. Pop it back in the oven for 2 minutes or until the cheese melts. You can see my side of the dish over there on the left with no cheese. It is delicious without it.

Serve it over brown rice.

Aren’t they cute? I like to call them Hot-opuses. Which is also a cute name. Isn’t it?

Unless you have a three year old who butchers the pronunciation of things. Because then he will be shouting, “I wuv hot pu$$ies” the entire time you are eating dinner. And while it is very funny, you really don’t want to have to explain to the rest of your children why you are laughing. Trust me.
This is a very simple recipe. You will need:

2 lbs of shell pasta
1 1/3 cups of milk
1/2 cup butter
16 oz mild cheddar cheese
16 oz of sharp cheddar
You can use whatever kind of cheese you like. I picked these two cheeses because they are mild and my children like them.
Salt, to taste
Hot dogs

This feeds 10 people. If you have less than ten people to feed. Half the recipe

You want to grate your cheese so that it will melt easily. I have this antique cheese grater that I love. As I use it I like to think about the people who used it before I found it. What were they making? Did they grate the skin off of their knuckles like I frequently do? Did they say, “Mmmm, extra flavor!” like I do? Did they happily cast it aside when more modern inventions came along and made the task easier?

Using the grater is a lot of work. You may even need a snack to help you get through it.

And as always many hands make light work.

Of course you could buy your cheese already grated at the store. But then what will you do with yourself while your pasta is boiling away?

Next you want to grease your casserole dish with your butter. Really slather it on. Neatness does not count in this particular step of the recipe. That will come later.

Toss the rest of the stick of butter into the pot with your already cooked and drained pasta shells. Stir it up so that it melts and coats the pasta.

Next add your grated cheese.

A little at a time so that you can stir it up evenly.

Pour it all into your casserole dish.

Measure out your 1 1/3 cup of milk.

Pour it all over the pasta. Cover with aluminum foil and put into a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. If you would like the macaroni on the top to get crunchy, remove the aluminum foil for the last 10 minutes of baking. My children do not like the crunchy pasta.

Ten minutes before the macaroni is done, prep the hot dogs.

You want to cut the eight “legs” before you boil them. Hold the hot dog and about one inch from the top of the hot dog slice in half lengthwise. Turn the hot dog a quarter turn and repeat the process. Now is the time for your perfectionist qualities to come out. Each of those four individual legs needs to be cut in half. Because octopi have 8 legs.

My husband said, “Isn’t four enough?” and then proceeded to chop one of the legs off by mistake. So I had to take over the leg cutting lest we have a whole slew of octopus amputees.

You can feel good about feeding your children hot dogs when you prepare them this way. Something about the length of time it takes you to prepare food makes it instantly more nutritious. No really. I swear.

Then put them in your shallow pan of water to cook. They do look like weird octopi now don’t they?

The “legs” will curl up. My 3 year old son saw them at this point and yelled, “They are holding hands!”

Remove macaroni from oven. You will want to scoop it into the bowl and set the hot-opus in top. If I had peas I would have added some to the top of the bowl at this point. But I didn’t.

Add eyes to the hot-opus with mustard or ketchup.

And so we have the perfect kid friendly meal, with nary a vegetable to be found.

Yesterday was a busy day and not particularly my favorite day ever. I’m trying to approach bad days like the British from now on. Instead of having anxiety attacks and debating throwing myself from a bridge I am instead understating the badness of things. The day? It was? Regrettable.

I decided to make this Potato Cheddar and Bacon soup from the Kraft.com website.  A few weeks ago some friends mentioned the Kraft website as a place they find quick to make and serve dinners. That’s what I want on a busy Monday so the soup seemed like a good trial.
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Last time we met, I had (against my better judgment) created chocolate chip cookies mixed with whole chickpeas. The results seemed all right, but I remained skeptical. I mentioned the real test would be lunch the following day, would the kids eat both cookies? Shockingly, this is Max’s lunch container after school.

Both Max’s cookies remain untouched while Madison, my more typically picky child, could not resist the cookie appearance and ate them. Given this I will probably make these again, baking them slightly longer (I always struggle with over baking cookies so I erred on the opposite side this time) and mashing up the garbanzo beans at least a little before mixing them into my dough. One can only accept so many whole beans in one’s mouth before one begins to curse Jessica Seinfeld’s cruel garbanzo trickery. Continuing on with our Deceptively Delicious trial I continued to experiment with a couple more of Seinfeld’s recipes over the weekend.
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Usually I focus on food and related angst on Tuesdays and something relating to organization/productivity on Thursdays. However this week (and potentially next week as well) I’m just sort of focusing on food. Mainly because I spent (literally) 4 hours yesterday steaming, baking and pureeing vegetables.

On Tuesday I mentioned how I’d pureed a few vegetables following the directions in and it wasn’t all that big a deal. On Wednesday I tackled a major batch of vegetables following the directions laid out in Deceptively Delicious. Somewhere in hour two I remembered why I never made my own baby food. It’s kind of annoying if you don’t like cooking and/or messes.

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The Shocking Results From The Banana Hot Dog Experiment:

Before going forward I should let you know I got this idea from another source, only I don’t remember where I saw it. I’ve browsed the Kid Eats Flickr Pool and haven’t seen it but I swear that’s where I first saw it. Going forward just note, this was not my original idea.

Max did not touch the Banana disguised as a hot dog, didn’t even unwrap from the plastic wrap coating. It, quote: “freaked me out”. My son is generally the less picky of my three children (I’m counting my spouse) so this was surprising. Likes seafood chowder, hates bananas in hot dog buns.

Madison loved the banana disguised as a hot dog. Which is surprising because she typically hates anything which is different than white bread with peanut butter sandwiched between another slice of white bread. Hates seafood chowder, likes bananas in hot dog buns.

I honestly question whether all my children will be happy with the same meal at the same time at any point in my life.
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