Time to get smokin’

I think I have made my girls sick!!!

I’m pretty sad about this development.  When I was seriously sick, I stayed as far away from Mary Ellen as was humanly possible.  Kurt changed her and fed her and took care of her as much as possible, but he had to go to work.  And that left me taking care of her.  I washed my hands incessantly and used hand sanitizer every time I sneezed or blew my nose.  But since I was sneezing, I was expelling all kinds of germs in the air around me, so I guess that was how poor Mary Ellen picked up my illness.

She sounds pretty congested, and her little nose is all stuffed up.  She’s sleeping just fine, however, even with the binky in her mouth.  Every so often she feels warm, so I check her temperature.  Most of the time it’s fine, but every once in a while it’ll be barely elevated.

If it ever hits 100.3º, I have already been told by our pediatrician to take her to the ER.  Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.  Fortunately it’s never even crested above 99.5º, so I feel confident that she’s not seriously sick.  But I am aware.

Grace is sick too!  When she got to school this morning, one of her eyes was red and watery.  The teachers were concerned that she had pink eye and kept an eye on her all day.  By the time we went to pick her up from school, her teacher was waiting at the front door of the school for us.  She came outside with Grace and told us that Grace had had a bad day.

This was hugely surprising.  She has never had a single bad day in the eight months she’s been attending this school.  Apparently she wasn’t listening, that was the main thing.  But I guess she was also getting upset easily.

Poor kid.

She wasn’t the only one having issues either.  Her teacher mentioned that lots of kids were having issues, and half the class was yawning in circle time!  There’s something going around, sickness-wise, and it’s a full moon to boot.

Now Grace’s eye is watering again, but it’s because she’s sick and sneezy and coughy and runny-nosed.  Therefore, I have successfully gotten both of my kids sick.

It makes me sad.

Fortunately I have healthy kids, and they should kick this illness pretty easily.  That’s what I am hoping, anyhow.

I made a delicious and easy dinner tonight.  I haven’t been to the grocery store in forever; in fact, I have yet to update my menu planner from last week!  And tomorrow is Friday!!  It’s not like I’ve wanted to go to the commissary, what with my being so sick this week.  So I had to make dinner with what was on hand.

On the menu tonight — Creamy Chicken and Rice, served with California-blend veggies.

Creamy Chicken and Rice

1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup water
3/4 cup uncooked regular long grain rice
1/4 tsp. each paprika and pepper
4 boneless chicken breast halves

Mix soup, water, rice, paprika, and pepper in 2-qt shallow baking dish. Toip with chicken. Season with additional paprika and pepper. Cover.

Bake at 375ºF for 45 minutes or until done. Serves 4.

It couldn’t be easier, and it’s incredibly delicious.  I got this recipe off a can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup, but of course I had to tweak it to my own purposes.

For one thing, I used the Healthy Request version of the cream of mushroom soup, which is 98% fat-free and reduced sodium.  I also chose to use chicken broth instead of the water to add another layer of flavor.  Finally, I don’t have long grain rice.  I can’t remember the last time I bought long grain rice!  I’ve always used Calrose rice, which is a medium grain rice that tends to be sticky when cooked.  We prefer sticky rice, so Calrose answers our needs perfectly.  It works just fine in every recipe I’ve tried.

You could easily use different flavors of cream soup to change the overall taste of the dish.  I’ve seen roasted garlic cream of mushroom soup, and golden mushroom soup, and all kinds of delicious things.  Or you could use cream of chicken if you didn’t like cream of mushroom.

This is an excellent recipe for chilly days when you just need something to warm you from the inside out.  It wasn’t that cold here tonight, but we really wanted some good comfort food.  And this was perfect.

Try it sometime!