I’ve done what I used to think was the impossible, a feat reserved for only the superhuman among us. With the exception of our regular Saturday night take0ut, as of tomorrow I will have cooked dinner at home every night for the past two weeks.

Between activities, errands, a second infant and witching hour (do all children receive the memo on this one during delivery??) I’d been cooking two to three nights a week at best. Meal planning never worked for me, as I struggled to decide what to make – just thinking through a menu takes a lot of time I usually don’t have. A few weeks ago I finally decided to try those weekly menus and shopping lists you see in some food and lifestyle magazines, like the Grocery Bag feature in Everyday Food and the Real Simple Recipe Shopping Lists. For once I’m glad to have the decisions made for me! I just buy all the ingredients and make all the dishes on the menu, even the ones I’m not sure I’ll totally like. The ingredients in both magazines’ menus are seasonal and take relatively little hands-on prep time; the Everyday Food ones, in particular, tend to be rather economical too. I save my “big fancy meals” and most baking for the weekend when I have more time and an extra set of hands (my husband’s) to watch the kids. I should have started this long ago.

In the spirit of getting mid-week dinner on the table, I wanted to share this incredibly quick, easy and tasty recipe for a Fiesta Chicken Soup that comes from a carton of chicken broth. I suppose it’s called “Fiesta” as it’s similar to a Mexican chicken tortilla soup, with the zing of lime juice in the broth along with the flavors of jalapeño, cilantro and avocado. The way I prepared this soup actually wasn’t so quick, as I made my own chicken stock and grilled some organic chicken. But for nearly as good results in under 20 minutes you could easily use a good quality ready-made stock and rotisserie chicken.

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Ina Garten (aka, the Barefoot Contessa) roasts a chicken every Friday night for her husband Jeffrey when he makes the long drive out to their home in the Hamptons. How homey and inviting that sounds! Of course, Jeffrey is one lucky guy to be coming home to anything Ina makes, but a flavorful roast chicken is just one of those satisfying staples that always seems to please and is pretty easy to pull together. The Herb-Crusted Roast Chicken recipe I’m sharing today isn’t from Ina, but I’m quite sure Jeffrey would find it quite worth the drive home to “the island”.

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By the time my husband and daughter returned from their afternoon outing yesterday at the neighborhood playground our house was filled with the comforting aromas of garlic-roasted Cornish game hens. They knew they were in for a real treat.

Ever since I first spatchcocked Cornish game hens on my panini grill I’ve been a big fan of these little gals. They roast so quickly and are just as juicy and flavorful as their larger counterparts.  So when I found a recipe for what sounded like a zesty, flavorful garlic-lime chicken marinade on the side of a garlic powder bottle, I immediately nixed the boneless, skinless chicken breasts it called for in favor of hens. Instead of garlic powder, dried cilantro and lime juice I freshened things up a bit with fresh garlic and cilantro and lime zest.  These aromatics tucked under the skin gave the hens a real zing, while the cumin and cayenne pepper in the rub added a welcome touch of smoky heat.

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