A TV Dinner

Dropping my daughter and her friends off downtown for a concert took two and a half hours in Atlanta rush hour traffic yesterday.  Upon my arrival home, I realized I was alone for the first time in a very long time.  I love being surrounded by my loved ones, but I'd forgotten how nice it is to be alone at home.  I seized the opportunity to make myself a "TV dinner".

When I was a little girl, my mom usually served healthy, well-planned meals.  When my dad was out of town, however, sometimes she'd serve a frozen "tv dinner" as she called it, which was really an awful, factory made, collection of dishes, frozen into a portioned foil tray to be cooked in the oven for 45 minutes or so.  If we were lucky, the cherry cobbler hadn't jumped the foil wall into the well of creamed corn.  Even so, I loved tv dinners for their novelty, but also because they were served on trays that we could use in front of the tv.  Back in the 70's there wasn't necessarily anything worth watching on any of the 3 channels available to us, but that didn't stop my enjoyment of this anomalous occurrence. Memories . . .

Last night I quickly created a healthier, more delicious tv dinner.  I seared some organic chicken in coconut oil and grassfed butter, and finished it with capers and a squeeze of lemon.  The crisp outer edge was divine. In another pan, cavolo nero was quickly turned crunchy in the oil-butter combo cooked at high heat and seasoned with fragrant cumin powder.  This may be my new favorite way of preparing kale!  The trayful of healthy, delicious food was complemented by a lovely sauvignon blanc and a lightweight movie I was sure nobody else would have wanted to see.  Perfection!  (My daughter and friends had a ride home with another parent so the glass of wine was fine)