Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

After leaving for New Jersey early (EARLY!) Tuesday morning, my hubby is finally home, and words cannot express how happy that makes me. And while I missed him and I’m glad to see him myself–the house feels awfully quiet when he’s gone–I’m even more glad on behalf of the kiddos.  My middle has been weepy at bedtime for several nights in a row–“I miss daddy…”–and the boy, well…let’s just say that last Saturday, when I twice gave him the choice of playing outside with his sisters or staying inside with Mommy, his response both times was “Daddy!”  (At which point I started really dreading the advent of Daddy’s business trip.)

My oldest, for the record, absolutely loves her Daddy, but being in school during the day gives her more of a distraction, and she’s old enough to see “Daddy’s coming home Friday night” for what it is, and thus to wait more patiently.

He almost didn’t make it Friday night, though, delays being what they are.  In fact, I didn’t actually look at the clock when he came in, so I can’t absolutely swear that he made it before midnight.  (In related news, boy, I’m tired this morning…)  But he is HOME, and we are thrilled.  Yay for Daddy!

He was originally supposed to get in around 7:15, which would have been nice but still put him arriving home right around bedtime; knowing that, I specifically planned an afternoon away and dinner with a friend as a distraction.  She proposed we try this One-Pan Lemon Garlic Chicken Pasta, and I was all over that, so we pulled some chicken out of the freezer and went to town.

Except, of course, for a few changes.

The biggest change was the herb; neither of us had fresh basil (it’s WAY too early in the season for that to live outside), and neither of us was thrilled about going to the store, so we cut a significantly smaller amount of parsley off of my parsley plant and called it good.  (To be honest, we both ended up feeling that basil, in the amount specified, would have been overpowering.)  We also couldn’t bring ourselves to use that much Parmesan cheese–don’t get me wrong, we liked the idea just fine, but we were feeling poor.  The proper amount would have been tasty, and better still with the good stuff and not the canned, but some expenses are hard to justify when the majority of those eating are kids who either won’t care or would prefer not.  We just generously topped individual servings, which wasn’t ideal, but hey.  We didn’t garnish with lemons partly because there were not actually lemons to spare–some of mine had been in the fridge for a while and were kind of scary–but that was probably for the best, since my kids don’t love strong lemon flavor.  (Which is tragic for me–I really, really do.)

Other than that whole paragraph, of course, we followed the recipe!  And I liked it.  My friend didn’t like it enough to make it again when her kids didn’t like it, but mine were split down the middle.  (Let’s be honest.  If I rejected every new recipe that my middle didn’t like, we’d be losing recipe options instead of gaining them.)  I liked it enough to try it again, especially since it was a relatively easy one pot meal.  Give it a shot!  Try some steamed broccoli on the side.

You’ll be glad you did.