Three Easy Meals For When You're Too Tired To Cook: Part 1

As promised: more documenting, and a not-so-heavy post.

I love to cook. I find it really relaxing and I feel much happier after a meal if it's come from fresh food instead of a box or a fast food place. The problem though, is that cooking can be really time consuming.

Only about once or twice during the week do I spend any real time on dinner (as in over half an hour getting things ready). Other than that I try to get food on the table within about twenty minutes. This can be difficult if you're trying to stay away from instant meals like Mac & Cheese or grilled cheese sandwiches- basically anything with dairy in it- why must cheese be so delicious? Scott and I both don't do well with dairy. I become a bloated pig for the next day and Scotty breaks out like a pubescent teen.

So here are my favourite sugar-free, dairy-free, and worry-free meals that we make.

I actually don't know the name of this dish, but my sister made it for me once and it was DELICIOUS- so let's call it peppers and chicken haha. I tried to recreate it the next day (that's how good it was) but I only used what I could remember. I have realized this dish is basically foolproof. I've thrown whatever I feel like in with it and it has always turned out great. The other great part? It requires little to no cooking-in-front-of-a-hot-stove-sweating-to-death kind of preparation and everything is fresh.

One way I cut out a lot of cooking time is I cook my chicken breasts at the beginning of the week. Then I can quickly grab one out of the fridge and put it on a frying pan for a few minutes if needs be. It saves SO much time. Also, this is a great recipe for if you're like me and you buy bell peppers constantly and then forget to use them.

Well, let's get to it!


Peppers and Chicken Salad

Ingredients:

• 2-4 chicken breasts cooked and sliced (Scott and I easily go through two)
• 5-6 bell peppers sliced (We usually use 3 for just the two of us)
• Half a red onion chopped
• 1 jalapeño, seeded

Combine those in a bowl and let them sit. I have added banana peppers instead of jalapeño and my sister adds olives instead of jalapeño. Some other time maybe I'll post on when you should use certain kinds of onions. Once you know what kind to use, it will change your meals for the better!

Sauce:

• Quarter cup of red wine vinegar (I usually use less than this)
• Quarter cup of olive oil (I use less oil too)
• 1 Tablespoon of Balsamic Vinegar (I double it because I have a weird addiction to balsamic vinegar)
• 1-2 teaspoons of chili flakes
• 2 cloves of garlic (I press mine- I love my garlic press!!)

Mix those together and pour over the the first half. Let it sit for a few minutes to soak up the juices. 

Right before serving dice up two tomatoes and mix them in. Salt and pepper to taste.

I have served it with baguettes or buns to dip in the juice and it's delicious, but if you're trying to stay away from bread it's delicious all on its own! The chicken really soaks up the flavour and the peppers are a yummy crunch. 

Enjoy!

Can we just laugh at this picture for a second? I actually made this recipe the other day, and I was so hungry I didn't think to take a picture. For some reason I feel like a recipe needs a picture... Pixlr skills to the rescue! 

I Hate Finals Week

I have severe writer's block. The thing with blogs is that it's really fun to write on one, but then I remember that my words will be put out into space and I get too nervous. My resolution this year is to record, and I'm hoping to make a book for my someday family. I tried to do a scrapbook and it sucked, and then I thought I would do an Instagram book and remembered my Instagram is embarrassing.

So here I am, having no idea what to talk about. C'est la vie; it must be done. I am in a weird zone of my blog right now. Do I get down to the nitty-gritty, or do I tell you guys a bunch of non-interesting details about my life? That is the question. I think I'll start with the non-interesting details, if we're going to be straight forward here.

I am still teaching, and my classes are getting into their finals. I have decided this is the worst time of year. Yesterday in a final I saw a 16 year old boy silently start to cry as test anxiety and panic started to take over. I had a very conflicting dialogue with myself. Do I help the boy? Well, it's a final and he needs to do this on his own... But would I want someone to help me? Yes, but again, Kelsey, it is a final and this needs to assess his understanding! I started to cry. Haha, so silly. I shed a single tear for this boy. That's so embarrassing to say. In the end I got up and helped the kid. I helped him plan his essay out and gave him some ideas. I feel a little guilty, because there was some definite nudging on my part, but to see relief wash over his face when he realized he could do it was totally worth it.

I realized two things in that instance:

1. There is nothing worse than finals week.

2. I really, genuinely love the kids I teach.

Somedays I come home from work, throw my bag down and my hands up and tell Scott, "I am so done with this. I am done with those crabby, lazy, no good, rotten teenagers! Why can't they work? Why are they so mean to each other? Why can't they get off their (blank) phones?!" I usually rant for a few more minutes, declare myself done with them for eternity, and then have a three hour nap. There have been times where I have gone to bed and thought, "If I didn't show up to work, or if I never went back, would they notice? Am I accomplishing anything in the slightest with these kids?" On those nights sleep does not come easily.

But then something like that test happens, only slightly different. A kid comes and asks for help, or someone that I usually see alone in the halls feels safe in my room, or they do/say something so absurdly hilarious that I laugh harder than I probably ever have before. I realize that I have the chance to be a constant in their life. I am always there for them, sitting at my desk, probably eating some kind of stress treat to get through the day (like the Mr. Big I have in my mouth as I'm typing this), and ready to help them. All this because I love them. I don't know how or when it happens, but it does.


Well, I didn't mean for this blog to turn heavy. My next one will be very light and fluffy, I promise!

My Realms of Reality

Five years ago, I sat in my bed and bawled because I missed high school more than anything in the world. "Life was so easy! I miss my family!" I would think while I downed a tub of Nutella and watched Mean Girls for the 1000th time- which ironically portrays high school as a really horrible thing, which I didn't seem to notice. I hated university, as in really hated it. No one cared about me at university. "Where's the individuality!?" I would wail as Asians and hipsters passed me on the sidewalk. Alas, my first year at school was not good. But you know, it all changed. Eventually, year by year, I fell more in love with school. By the end of it I couldn't get enough. I would spend hours on campus, when I really didn't need to, just because I loved the feeling of being at school. I made friends, like, real friends. And suddenly I was so interesting! And did you wanna hear about my cool facts I learned in my class?

But, as all things do, it ended. My last day of university I held back tears as I wandered around the campus soaking everything in. That school was my school, and I was not ready to be done with it. Then everything changed really quickly. First, I had a job interview, then I had a job, and suddenly I had left my school for a new one. I was heading back to high school. The one place I missed the most five years before and now I was back at it.

I'm not going to give an account of what I've been up to. It's probably what you can imagine any first-year teacher doing. What I've really been thinking about lately is realms of reality. See, the way I imagine life is that as you go about things you are only within a certain reality. As a teenager, I was in a reality that was centered on friends, The O.C. reruns, and school. I didn't have to worry about a job or making my own food; my reality of life was very limited. When I graduated, and moved away from home to attend school, my reality changed. Suddenly I had to think about paying bills (Okay, my mom helped me write every cheque for about two years...). As the next five years passed, my reality at times seemed to explode, rather than nicely transition, with massive life changes.  Marriage, for example. I don't want to pretend here like marriage is not a massive life change, because it is. Let's all stop pretending like marriage is instantly easy. I've learned the delicate science of living with a man, and that in and of itself has expanded my reality to multiple new levels. ;)

I think everyone has those experiences, whether it's from traveling, or marriage, or children. You're sitting there one minute, and then in the next you realize that your life, along with yourself, has completely changed. Everything you thought was important has shifted, and you need to make room for an entirely new situation. I love that feeling. Isn't it wonderful to think: Wow, I can handle more now than I could yesterday. That's how I'm feeling right now. I have had to become what some people might call an adult, and it's entirely new to me.

I go to school everyday worried that I will do what's best for 100 different kids, and although I don't always succeed, I am constantly being amazed at how much my reality is expanding. My idea about life -and its purpose- about kids, about ideas, about whatever, is constantly shifting. As much as I would somedays love to go back to high school where my realm was tiny and comfortable, I realize that there is so much understanding that I would miss. There is so much more to life, and I'm only starting to get at it. There is so much more expansion for me.