Guest blogger Megan Jessop reminds us that fancy dinners aren’t just for adults on Valentine’s Day. Here’s an easy twist on a classic ‘high brow’ dish that’s easy to make, and your Lil’ Valetines will love.

A Romantic Dinner for Your Kids

If you have ever opened up one of Julia Child’s cookbooks, you have likely looked over the recipe for Chicken Cordon Bleu or Chicken Kiev. Both of these dishes involve pounding chicken breasts thin and stuffing them with ham and cheese or herbed butter. Then you must roll the breasts tight so that the contents don’t fall out. Finally you must bread each breast with flour, egg and breadcrumbs, and then bake or fry in oil. This is truly a romantic dish and an impressive one too. But who can get to this on a daily basis? Instead I’ve come up with a version that is so fast and tasty even your kids will look forward to helping you make it and will eat every last bite.

For two single servings

• Four Chicken Tenders cut up in small pieces (any chicken would work)
• 12 Ritz Crackers (you could use breadcrumbs but Ritz crackers makes this dish tasty)
• Tablespoon of Butter
• Two Slices of Ham cut up in small pieces
• Two Slices of Cheese (use your child’s favorite, but Swiss cheese is Julia’s preference)
• Two oven safe ramekins (small cooking bowls)

Instructions

Take your cooking bowls and butter the bottom and sides. Break three Ritz Crackers in the bowls, making a thin layer (You could also use breadcrumbs for this step). Next, put down your layer of chicken pieces, making a thick layer. Then, add a layer of ham, followed by your a layer of cheese. Then top your meal with one more layer of crackers (three each again). Kids love to break up the crackers and will be eager to help with all of the assembly of this meal.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Once out of the oven, use a knife to cut around the edges, making it easier to remove the meal to a plate. Serve with some steamed veggies and you have a complete meal.

When I make this dish for my kids I make six servings and freeze the extras for another day. It is already an easy dish to make, but this saves me even more time. It is best to take them out of the freezer and defrost before baking.

One final note: This dish can be made family style in a large baking dish. Simply use the same assembly pattern: butter, crackers, chicken, ham, cheese and then crackers again in the proportions needed to fill your dish. Bake the same and make sure all the Chicken is cooked.

Enjoy! — Megan Jessop

About the author:

Megan Jessop is a Child psychologist and mother of two preschoolers. Megan is also a writer and member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

I don’t know if you’re like me, but I have a lousy diet. Just awful. Fast food and microwave is the way I roll, baby. However, I do love salad, and I try to eat it for lunch a couple times a week. But, because it’s homemade, my salads tend to be on the basic side.

Recently, I’ve been trying to jazz things up, without getting too Martha Stuart. I thought I’d share my latest experiments.

Tortillas in Salad

This one sounds weird, but I have got to tell you, I just turned an ordinary salad into something a lot more hearty and satisfying. We’ve got some fresh, white flour tortillas in the fridge. They were so nice and sotft, I wanted to eat one, but didn’t want to deal with a wrap or get out last night’s leftover ground turkey burritos.  Inspiration struck! I ripped the tortilla into bit sized shreds and lined the bottom of the salad bowl with them. Then I layered my spinach, carrots, mozzarella cheese and turkey on top.

The result? Mmm! The fairly bland tortilla chunks were mellow and soft and added a nice texture to the salad, along with some extra calories which should hopefully keep my from starvation later this afternoon.

The next logical step, of course, would be to turn the tortilla strip salad into a full-on Mexican themed salad with a blend of spicy Mexican cheeses, peppers, tomatoes, maybe some salsa, etc. If any of you try it, please let me know!

Thanksgiving-themed Salad

Okay, so this was my it’s-November-let’s-make-a-Thanksgiving-salad idea. And I thought it turned out very yum! This would be a great after Thanksgiving salad to use up those leftovers. I made this for one person, but you could expand it to serve more.

What you need:

• 1 small Microwavable baked sweet potato

• Mixed green salad, pre-washed and ready to eat

• Turkey, either deli sliced or shredded Turkey meat (or Thanksgiving leftovers!)

• shredded cheese, Mozzarella (or whatever cheese you fancy)

• mushrooms & pre-washed baby carrots (or whatever extra fixin’s you’d like. Walnuts would be a nice touch)

• dressing, like raspberry or cranberry vinagrette

• dried cranberries (optional)

Bake your sweet potato according to directions. Most groceries stores now carry ready to bake, wrapped potatos and sweet potatoes. They usually take about 6 to 8 minutes to bake on high in the microwave.

While it’s baking, throw in a generous portion of greens, carrots and mushrooms into a bowl. Add the cold turkey meat and cheese, and whatever additional toppings you’d like, such as walnuts or dried cranberries.

When the sweet potato is done, remove wrapper and let cool. Cut off the ends and discard. Then cut sweet potato in half, and remove skin. Cut the sweet potato halves into cubes, and let cool. Then toss in the salad.

Finish off with your favorite vinaigrette dressing (I, however, just used extra virgin olive oil as my dressing, because I ran out of anything else!). I haven’t seen cranberry salad dressing in stores, but I know there are recipes for it online. I’m sure any vinaigrette-type dressing would be yum. I’d steer clear of things like Ranch and Blue Cheese, however.

If anyone tries any of these ideas, I’d love to hear or see.

Karyn

One Pot Turkey Burritos

I wouldn’t call this a ‘recipe’ exactly. I wing my cooking, so I don’t have measurements and stuff like that. But this dish is virtually impossible to mess up.

So here goes:

Ingredients:

• 1 package of Ground Turkey (lean or not, doesn’t matter)
• 1 small jar of your favorite Salsa
• 1 can of Black Beans
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1 package of tortillas (flour, corn, spinach whatever floats your boat)
• 1 package shredded cheese (Mexican mix, cheddar, whatever you like)

To Make:

Grab your largest skillet/frying pan. Pour enough olive oil in the pan to coat the bottom. Be liberal and don’t feel guilty about it! Olive oil is tasty and good for you!

Add the entire package of ground turkey and cook until brown on medium heat. Make sure you chop it up into nice small bits with your spatula as you cook.

When the turkey is browned, grab your favorite jar of salsa. I used to like it super spicy, but my stomach can’t handle that anymore. I use mild salsa. Now, add salsa to the meat — just dump it in right from the jar. I eyeball this. It works out to about 1/4 to 1/3 of the small jar, depending on how spicy I want it. You can add as much or as little as you want.

Now grab your can of black beans. You can use refried, but I usually use the whole black beans. Open that sucker up and dump the whole thing in. Drain if you want, but I don’t. I like the juices.

Your skillet’s getting pretty full at this point, so carefully fold it all together and then turn it down a bit, cover, and let it simmer for a few minutes. You just want it to simmer long enough for the flavors to all mingle together and the beans and salsa to heat through.

Note: If you want it nice and juicy, keep that lid on. If you want your burritos a little less sloppy, keep the lid off and let some of the liquids evaporate off as it simmers.

Once the ingredients have all combined, grab your tortillas and a plate. Put one tortilla down and then grab your cheese.

Spread your cheese liberally on your tortilla, then spoon your turkey burrito mix onto your tortilla. Remember to do the cheese first so the hot burrito mix will make it melty and gooey!

Wrap it up and voila! You’ve just made a yummy turkey burrito. Top with your favorite toppings (cheese, sour cream, salsa, whatever) and serve alone or with chips or spanish rice.

Enjoy!