Dinner in a blink...

Thursday Recap:

6:45-7:15am:  Dance + weights + squats

8:00am:  Coffee with pumpkin creamer

10:30am:  Breakfast- Toast with butter & flax

After getting Katie breakfast and blogging about kale & my "weight loss story" yesterday, I just needed something FAST, warm & cozy.  And nothin seems more cozy than toast with butter latelyJ

12:30pm:  Lunch- Leftover pumpkin soup with 1 ramekin crackers 

Talk about cozy, I think the nutmeg & sage was even more noticeable after letting this sit for a few days! YUM!

3:00pm:  Snack #1- Laughing Cow cheese wedge

5:30pm:  Snack #2-  3 chocolate almonds (not pictured) while I was cooking or I would have sat down to dinner wayyyyyyyy too hungry!  It worked tooJ

6:00pm:  Dinner- Chicken with sage & capers over broccoli couscous & corn

This dinner seems complicated, but came together in a blink.  Literally I was sorta dreading getting started cause I was REALLLLLLY hungry (thanks, almonds!), but was done before I even realized I had started cooking.J

First, I started by boiling about 1 & 1/2 cups of chicken broth on the stove and adding a chopped head of broccoli until it was cooked through (about 6-7 minutes)

Once the broccoli was cooked through, turn off the stove and add in 1 cup of couscous and cover.  Let sit for 5 minutes before fluffing with a fork.  (ps-if you want to just make plain couscous, just add in 1 cup water/chicken broth to 1 cup couscous.)

While the broccoli was boiling, I sauteed up some diced chicken in a little olive oil.  Once it was cooked through, I placed it on a plate off to the side while I got to working on the sauce.

For the sauce, I added 1/2 cup of chicken broth to the 'chicken pan' to deglaze it and help scrape up all the bottom bits (aka-the FLAVA!!) 

Let that boil for a few minutes before adding in the capers (I used 3 tablespoons cause we LOVE capers!), diced sage (about 10 leaves) and 1 tablespoons of cornstarch dissolved in 2 teaspoons water to help thicken the sauce.  Let it all cook together for about 5 minutes or until thickened... 

ps-you do NOT need to add salt if you are adding capers.  They are salty enough.  Ummm....we learned this the 'hard way'J

Once the sauce was ready, I threw back in the chicken... 

...and gave it all a good mix... 

Then it was a layer of couscous... 

...and a layer of the saucy chicken!  YUM! 

Herby sage and salty & briny caper coated chicken over fluffy couscous made this dinner ACES.  And I think from start to finish, this really only took about 20 minutes...which, let's be honest, makes it even more appealingJ (btw-I think capers also fall into that "had to try it a few times before I loved em" list!)

Katie found couscous a little tricky at first... 

...but eventually got the hang of getting all of those feisty little rounds onto her forkJ   

We also had, what I assume, will be one of the last rounds of really good summer corn (you could tell they were a little more starch-y then the ones from last week) 

Where Katie officially graduated to her own earJ

Girl LOVES herself some corn!  (and couscous, obviouslyJ) 

We attempted to talk a walk after dinner on what was an absolutely PERFECT warm/brisk Fall night, but made it around the corner when Scott tugged on Penny's retractable leash and the leash snapped right in his hand!  I guess it finally bowed out to 6 years of (TRYING!) to tame a RAMBUNCTIOUS chocolate labJ  Thankfully I was able to grab the leash in time before she realized she had full freedom and we turned around and headed back home.  Oh well.  Thankfully next week seems ideal walking weather too...even if I THINK we're gonna have to start heading out BEFORE 6.  We made it out by 6:20 last night and the sun was already setting...EEEEEEEEEEE! 

8:00pm:  Dessert- 2 pumpkin cookies

...and some DVR'd Survivor!

Not sure if I'm surprised the show is still on after 13 years or that we still get REALLYEXCITED to watch itJ  It still has some really good seasons, I must say!  Plus we never tire of seeing Jeff Probst hanging off the side of a helicopter.  What a job, huh??

Sighhhh...so who else is happy it's Friday??  Is that ever really a question??  We have a few fun plans and hopefully some cozy relaxing in the near future including ANOTHER Fall tradition happening tonight...weeeeee!J  You can never have ENOUGH Fall traditionsJ I'll fill ya in on Monday!  

Have a great weekend!!