My entire family is craving good food. You know when your five year old wants a home cooked meal that all of you have indulged enough over the holiday. So starting last night the hubs and I decided it was time to stop celebrating and feed our kids healthy again.

This is never a problem with the girl because she is just one of those freak-of-nature good eaters. The boy on the other hand would just as soon eat Ramen Noodles and ice cream for every meal. And while we are on the subject..Campbell’s please please bring back your baked ramen noodle soup. Then I wouldn’t feel like I force feeding a heart-attack and high blood pressure on my five year old.

Anywho…last night we made one of the few family dinners that the boy likes. SLIDERS. I reluctantly got dressed and went to Kroger on the day after Christmas (ugh!) to find the very last pack of slider buns and lean ground beef and turkey. The boy and the hubs had beef and the girl and I were going to have turkey but she turned on me at the last minute and ended up scarfing down half of daddy’s second slider.

I ate mine on lettuce with some low fat cream cheese and few olives. The boys melted yummy full-fat cheese and theirs and we heated up some butternut squash soup too. No desert either. Everyone went to bed full, happy and unbloated.

Yes! I’m getting my parenting groove back after 8 days of Christmas M&Ms and ramen.

And yes, I am aware of how much better this big, juicy beef slider looks than my healthy and lean turkey burgers. But that’s ok. Momma has to stay  on top of her game.

SLIDERS

I’m not even going to give you a recipe for this. It’s just small patties of meat and whatever seasoning you like. This is one of the few things that he hubs always cooks so there is definitely no recipe.

I will tell you if you are using lean turkey you need to cook it in some kind of oil because it dries out fast. Also season the turkey really well. Garlic and sea salt are my favorite or sometimes soy sauce. When we are feeling real fancy we mix BBQ sauce and cheese in the patties before cooking.

I try to always live by the rule of KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid. Anytime in my life the more complicated I make something the more of a mess I make.

That applies to everything in my life, but especially in the kitchen. I’ve been trying to for years to make a hipper, cooler version of the old Chicken Pot Pie we’ve had one hundred times in our lives.

I’ve tried the healthy route, the organic route, the rustic route, the single pie in a souffle bowl route, the fancy route…all big kitchen FAILS. So I decided to go KISS on this one. I googled the classic recipe for Chicken Pot Pie. I baked it old school style. And it turned out to be like chicken crack for my family!

Seriously. I normally don’t even really like Chicken Pot Pie and I found myself sneaking extra forkfuls as I was cleaning up after dinner saying ‘yummmm’ to myself like I was eating a Paula Dean chocolate cake.

Here’s the recipe I used.

1 deep dish refrigerated pie crust (2 crusts in the pack)

3 -4 boiled and chopped thin chicken breasts

1 cup frozen mixed veggies (corn, peas and green beans)

1/2 cup milk (I actually used half and half ..we NEVER have milk around here)

1 can of cream of chicken soup

salt and pepper

I boiled and chopped the chicken while the girl was napping in the afternoon so all I had to do was throw this all in the shell and in the oven about a half hour before dinner.

Mix the chicken, soup, milk and salt and pepper in a bowl….then ..I bet you can’t guess what’s next? Throw in the shell.

Put the second shell on top of the whole thing..poke a few holes and viola! You are done and have plenty of time to play Hanging with Friends while the kids are playing Wii before dinner.

Bake at 425 for about 30 minutes.

**Make sure you bake it on a cookie sheet to prevent any bubbly leakage.

And now that my cookie sheet has been photographed I am painfully aware that I need a new one.