This past fall was my first experience living off-campus and thus, my first time having to actually cook real food for myself. Very quickly realized how little I know about cooking at all. When I was younger, my mother would trap me in the kitchen and attempt to teach me how to make easy meals. She would say things like, “Don’t you want to learn?” I would look at her blankly, a hard “NO” struggling to escape my mouth. Instead, I would sigh, sit there and pretend to listen, while sneaking bits and pieces of food. There are two people in this world: Those who cook and those who eat what others cook for them. I think it’s pretty safe to assume which one I classify as. But! As I no longer had access to endless meal plans (RIP), I told myself it was time to cross over to the other side.
The other night, it was about 8 p.m. when I realized how starving I was and decided to throw something together. I had a left over chicken breast from the week previous as well as a good portion of a bag of frozen cauliflower, so I decided to half use Google to find recipes; half throw random things together and hope they tasted good. It turned out really well, was extremely easy to make and tasted AWESOME. I mean, come on, check this plate out…
Here are the (very roughly measured) ingredients I used:
- 1 Boneless chicken breast
- 1/4 cup Dijon mustard
- 1/4 cup honey
- Lemon juice
- Dried parsley
- Balsamic vinaigrette dressing
- 5 halved cherry tomatoes
- 1 cup cauliflower
- 1/2 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
- Parmesan cheese, shredded
- Salt/pepper
This is the recipe I used to guide me through baking the chicken breast: http://m.allrecipes.com/recipe/8847/baked-honey-mustard-chicken/
And this is a recipe I had seen on Pinterest earlier in the week for the cauliflower: http://www.everydayhealth.com/health-recipe/balsamic–parmesan-roasted-cauliflower.aspx
Although the recipe says to roast the cauliflower at 450°F, I found that it was easiest and worked just as well to bake both at 350°F so that they’d be done at the same time. I left out some ingredients I felt I didn’t really need/want, while adding a few drops of lemon juice, balsamic vinaigrette dressing and halved cherry tomatoes to the Honey Mustard Chicken sauce. Threw a handful of green beans (100% micro waved, nobody’s perfect) for some color on the plate and you’re all done! Easy and healthy. And trust me, if I can do it, then you definitely can too.
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