As a nursing major, my classes are only on Wednesdays this year to ensure adequate time to complete our role transition clinical hours. So with 12 credit hours shoved into one day, I’m certainly not looking forward to my first day of classes tomorrow. Also, the start of classes signifies the beginning of my last ever semester of undergraduate education, maybe of my higher education in general if I ever decide what exactly I want to do for the rest of my life.
In my life, I have a fairly consistent baseline of stress compounded with whatever random events and deadlines approach throughout the semesters. I also fear the unknown, so the uncertainly of what my classes will hold this semester brings me stress, as well as the impending exit HESI I will have to take in a week. That exam alone supposedly predicts success on the NCLEX-RN exam and indicates how much knowledge I’ve retained over the last 3 and a half years. If I don’t pass the exit HESI in a semester’s time, I won’t receive my “authorization to test” code for my boards. This test isn’t something to take lightly, and considering I spent approximately zero time over winter break preparing for it, I’m stressed. Out of ten, I would rank my stress at about a 5/10-manageable, but something definitely feels like it’s hanging over my head.
The perfect time to cook something is now. I chose something relatively quick and healthy so I do not feel even worse about my body for all the junk I ate over winter break. I could include an incredibly delicious chocolate pie recipe in here that would cause us all to gain ten pounds in one sitting, but maybe I’ll save that for a different cookbook. I wanted a dish filled with color and the vegetables I needed to catch up on. Therefore, my first thought was a salad. Generally speaking, I hate salads. They seem very bland to me unless you throw on a ton of salad dressing and cheese, so my new goal was to find a healthy salad that I could actually enjoy.
Fajita chicken salad. Essentially, grilled and spiced bell peppers, onions, and chicken thrown on top of spinach and topped with tomatoes, corn, cheese, avocado, cilantro, and an olive oil lime dressing. I forgot the onion, cilantro, and corn when I went to the store, but that’s ok, our humanity shows through every once and a while. Sometimes you have to cut your losses and decide whether it’s really worth it to go back out into the cold for nonessential ingredients. It wasn’t for me, but I do recommend having them because they add different flavors and textures to the dish.
Stress level: 5/10
Yield: 5 servings
Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients
In my life, I have a fairly consistent baseline of stress compounded with whatever random events and deadlines approach throughout the semesters. I also fear the unknown, so the uncertainly of what my classes will hold this semester brings me stress, as well as the impending exit HESI I will have to take in a week. That exam alone supposedly predicts success on the NCLEX-RN exam and indicates how much knowledge I’ve retained over the last 3 and a half years. If I don’t pass the exit HESI in a semester’s time, I won’t receive my “authorization to test” code for my boards. This test isn’t something to take lightly, and considering I spent approximately zero time over winter break preparing for it, I’m stressed. Out of ten, I would rank my stress at about a 5/10-manageable, but something definitely feels like it’s hanging over my head.
The perfect time to cook something is now. I chose something relatively quick and healthy so I do not feel even worse about my body for all the junk I ate over winter break. I could include an incredibly delicious chocolate pie recipe in here that would cause us all to gain ten pounds in one sitting, but maybe I’ll save that for a different cookbook. I wanted a dish filled with color and the vegetables I needed to catch up on. Therefore, my first thought was a salad. Generally speaking, I hate salads. They seem very bland to me unless you throw on a ton of salad dressing and cheese, so my new goal was to find a healthy salad that I could actually enjoy.
Fajita chicken salad. Essentially, grilled and spiced bell peppers, onions, and chicken thrown on top of spinach and topped with tomatoes, corn, cheese, avocado, cilantro, and an olive oil lime dressing. I forgot the onion, cilantro, and corn when I went to the store, but that’s ok, our humanity shows through every once and a while. Sometimes you have to cut your losses and decide whether it’s really worth it to go back out into the cold for nonessential ingredients. It wasn’t for me, but I do recommend having them because they add different flavors and textures to the dish.
Stress level: 5/10
Yield: 5 servings
Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 pound chicken breast
- 2 bell peppers (I used red and yellow)
- 1 white onion
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 2 limes
- 1 tsp brown sugar
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 bag of spinach, washed
- 1 tomato, to top
- Yellow or white corn, divided, to top
- 5-10 leaves cilantro, to top
- Shredded cheddar, to top
- Avocado, to top
- Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces and the bell peppers and onion into thin slices.
- Heat the vegetable oil in a large nonstick pan over medium-high heat. While heating, combine the salt, cumin, chili powder, garlic powder.
- Add the chicken, bell peppers, onions, and spice mixture to the pan and stir until coated. Cook while occasionally stirring for about 8-10 minutes, until the chicken is no longer pink in the middle and the veggies are slightly tender. Remove from heat.
- Juice the two limes (about 3 tbsp of juice) and combine the juice, olive oil, brown sugar, and red pepper flakes in a small bowl.
- Dice the tomato and avocado, and finely chop the cilantro.
- Grab a handful or two of spinach and top with some of the chicken/bell pepper/onion mixture, tomatoes, cilantro, cheese, corn, and avocado. Drizzle with the lime dressing and enjoy!
The acts of preparing this meal are very simple, yet effective in reducing stress. Cutting the chicken and vegetables with a knife feels powerful, especially since I have to press so hard to cut the chicken with the dull knife I’m using. I’m sure I’ll buy a sharper one when I have a real job and can afford one. The most stress relief I got from this recipe was the manual squeezing of the limes. I don’t have a lime squeezer at my house, so I was just holding it over a bowl and hoping most of the juice was ending up in the right place. It’s nice to be able to take out my frustration on a lime, and it’s almost like my own personal satisfying stress ball since I literally had to squeeze the crap out of it.
The most satisfying part of cooking is knowing I was capable of making something that tasted halfway decent and was healthy at the same time. I got a ton of meals out of this as well, so I was able to already have lunches prepared for the next 3 days. Seeing as I wanted to study as much as possible the rest of this week, it was nice that I could save time making food. After making this, my stress went down to about a 3/10. Class will be what it is tomorrow and I will get as much studying done in my spare time as possible. Cooking and doing things I enjoy are important to intersperse to bring me back to reality.
The most satisfying part of cooking is knowing I was capable of making something that tasted halfway decent and was healthy at the same time. I got a ton of meals out of this as well, so I was able to already have lunches prepared for the next 3 days. Seeing as I wanted to study as much as possible the rest of this week, it was nice that I could save time making food. After making this, my stress went down to about a 3/10. Class will be what it is tomorrow and I will get as much studying done in my spare time as possible. Cooking and doing things I enjoy are important to intersperse to bring me back to reality.