Let's dish dinner

Have I mentioned that I have a 2 year old son before? I think I have but in case you don't have one of those around or your memory has failed you on what it's like to cook dinner with a toddler underfoot let me give you some insight on the matter.  Trying to cook dinner with "W" requires extreme survival skills as well as the ability to maneuver over tiny trucks, broken crayons and whatever toy he decides is absolutely necessary to place on the kitchen floor during mealtime preparation.

•  I sweat--the oven does not have to be on to do this by the way as it's just caused by wrangling the monkey that wants to be held while I stir, assemble, chop, etc.  I never hear "hold you mommy" more than I do between 4:30-5pm each and every day.
• There's blood because I have never been able to slice and dice while doing other things like oh keeping my son from pulling all the condiments out of the fridge or banging on the wine cabinet glass front with one of the pole components to my vacuum.  Also, remember the toy trucks I mentioned? Yeah, those suckers hurt and my husband and I have had to bust out some bandaids before because we just weren't looking down. 
• There's also plenty of tears because by the time my hubby walks joyfully through the back door from work with a banner greeting of "how was your day? I missed y'all!" I literally want to just sit in the middle of the kitchen floor and sob while eating an entire carton of chocolate icing...no cake necessary, just give me a spoon and the icing.

All this to say (and I realize it was a lot), dinner has to be easy as well as meet my standards of delicious and healthy.  That's not always the easiest thing but tonight's Sweet Potato and Black Bean Enchiladas hit the mark! It was a pantry raid kind of night so I pulled a can of black beans, some corn tortillas I had in the freezer, some pureed sweet potatoes that I had in the freezer, salsa, low fat cheese and a jar of green chile sauce that we picked up when we were on vacation in Ruidoso, New Mexico back in April.  I then proceeded to Google my ingredients (don't roll your eyes, you know you Google) and found a great recipe on the Five Dollar Dinners site that you can find here.  I literally dumped the potatoes and salsa in a bowl and mixed in my rinsed and drained beans and sprinkled in some cinnamon and cumin. 

Assembly took 10 minutes so after throwing them in the oven while holding "W" back with one foot I got ambitious and decided to grill some zuchinni outside so he could play! I think even Bobby Flay might have been impressed with those grill marks.  I just brushed with olive oil and sprinkled some steak seasoning on top---soooo good.

And while I grilled, "W" ran around with great glee.

In the end, I had a wonderful meal that was easy to prepare and walk away from while it cooked so I could spend my time in more important ways like blowing bubbles and chasing that sweet faced boy around the back yard.