Healthy hotel dinner

On my weekdays here in Dallas I stay at a Residence Inn. I choose to stay here over much more luxurious accommodations because of one reason only: the kitchen. It's a humble kitchen - two stovetop burners, a microwave, a basic set of pots/pans/utensils, a sink, and a fridge - but it's trusty and it keeps me from stuffing my face with Chipotle every night.

Over the months I've been playing around with different recipes for dinner. But sooner or later I always come back to this one - it's definitely become my default and favorite meal. And if I can make it after a long day of work in my little kitchen, I bet you can too!

The players: egg, quinoa, chicken broth, kale, brussel sprouts, tilapia, s+p, evoo, sriracha, and sesame oil.

In an ideal world I'd get fresh veggies and fish every day, but frozen and bagged varieties are a bit more realistic for my schedule and also keep longer.

Start by thawing your tilapia - I leave mine in a bowl of cold water for about 15 minutes. Get the quinoa going in a saucepan. I use about 2 parts chicken broth and 1 part water for mine.

Now that your fish and your quinoa are heating up in their respective vessels, it's time to face the veggies. Chop up your sprouts and place them in a pan with some evoo. I like to have the bottoms of mine nice and crispy, so I arrange them "face" down. I give them about 5 minutes of alone time in the pan because they can take a while to cook through.

Next up: kale. The Cinderella of vegetables. Not really glamorous when left neglected and undressed. But give it some water, some sriracha, some fairy dust (ok, sesame oil) and throw it in the pan - and something magical happens: it becomes delicious.

At this point your fish should have de-thawed. Since both of my burners are occupied, I continue to use my veggie pan by making some space in the middle and placing my filet there.

Tilapia and her entourage of vegetables.

Some seasoning and nimble flipping and voila, a nicely cooked chunk of fish. By this time your quinoa should be looking pretty fluffy and ready for consumption too. At this point I plate the veggies, quinoa and fish, cover them, and rest the contraption on top of my steaming saucepan to keep it nice and warm while I tackle the last hurdle: one teeny egg. Time to whip out the teeny egg pan!

I should patent this strategy.

Hold me closer, teeny pans-a.

This thing is pretty awesome. I bought it on a whim at Kroger for $4.00 and it has revolutionized the way I cook eggs. Not only does it prevent them from running all over the place as they tend to in normal-sized pans, it also has a fabulously non-sticky coating, which means gone are the days when I'm the sucker left scraping egg remnants off my pans! I highly recommend getting one especially if you find yourself cooking foreveralone a lot of the time.

Let the pan do its heat-distribution magic while you give the egg some s+p love. Then, assemble it with the rest of your goodies, et voila. You are done my friend.

I love this meal because it's simple, filling, nutritious and offers plenty of opportunity to customize or change up the ingredients. The quinoa and veggies also keep well - I usually make extra to bring for lunch the next day or to repurpose for tomorrow's dinner, when I'll make the egg and fish anew.

So there you go - a classic recipe from ole Granny Rose's cookbook. I hope this post has sparked interest in trying this meal. Or at the very least made you want to get a teeny egg pan. Because if there's only one take away from this post, it's that you should invest in a teeny egg pan. Huzzah!