I can remember the first time I found out that regular people made meal plans.

I knew my aunt did, at least when she had guests. She’d have hers typed up and hanging on the refrigerator when we went to visit. I was fascinated by this level of organization. But she was also a Home Ec teacher, so it was unsurprising.

It never even occurred to me that everyday people who didn’t teach other people how to manage a home for a living might do something similar.

I remember chatting with my friend Sarah not long after we both married. (Hers lasted; mine didn’t. But don’t blame my lack of meal planning.)

Anyway, she shared with me how she would plan two weeks’ worth of meals and do her grocery shopping only twice a month.

Like… she wrote all her meals down. On paper. And bought the groceries specifically for those meals. What the what?

See, Sarah and I were friends from childhood, so I already knew she was Born Organized. I was not. She told me once that she looked forward to the beginning of the school year so she could get back into a routine. I was not even sure what she meant by that. The very concept of having a routine was not something I had considered at age 16.

These days I think the kids would call my personality type “chaotic good.” In the early 2000s, though, we just called it disorganized.

But I mulled over that concept of having a meal plan for many years, making one off and on for years. Sometimes I even followed it.
But more often than not, I flew by the seat of my pants.

It wasn’t until Zack and I married, quickly had a third child, and I went back to teaching that I realized I had to start making a plan for meals or we would be eating sandwiches and cereal every night.

Last week, I decided I’d just make a list of dinners for the week and not assign them to a night. What I discovered in doing that is that I am so decisioned-out by the end of a workday that I can’t really handle that. Sad. I know.

Last week, I thawed out some butterflied chicken breasts. By the time I got home, I couldn’t really remember what I’d planned to make them into or what sides we were going to have with them. And I didn’t want to figure it out.

So I ended up making them into fried chicken cutlets. Y’all, they were good. Unfortunately, that’s about all we ate because that’s all I had the energy for.

PARMESAN CHICKEN CUTLETS

Ingredients
2-3 cups cooking oil (I use corn oil, but any oil with a high smoke point will work well)
2-3 chicken breasts
1 teaspoon salt, divided, or more to taste
1/2 teaspoon black pepper, divided
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
2 eggs, beaten
2/3 cup Panko bread crumbs
2/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese (the kind in the green can)

Directions
■ Place large, deep skillet over medium heat. Add oil to skillet. While oil heats, butterfly chicken breasts, cutting them horizontally to make two thinner cutlets. Using about half the salt, sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides.
■ Set up three breading stations: in shallow bowl 1, mix flour with remaining salt, garlic powder, and onion powder. In bowl 2, beat eggs. In bowl 3, mix together Panko with grated Parmesan cheese. When oil has reached about 375 degrees (or when a crumb dropped into the oil begins to fry immediately), dip cutlets one at a time into each breading plate: first flour on both sides, dusting off extra; then egg on both sides; and finally Panko. Press Panko/Parmesan into chicken. This is a messy process, so you may want to wear food-safe gloves or reserve one hand for wet ingredients and the other for dry.
■ Place breaded chicken into hot oil, taking care not to overcrowd the pan. I was able to fit only 2-3 cutlets in my pan at one time. Allow chicken to fry on one side until golden brown, about 3-5 minutes, and turn with metal tongs to fry the other side. Remove chicken to a paper towel-lined plate or cooling rack set onto a rimmed cooking sheet. Check the internal temperature of the chicken. If it is browned but not at an internal temperature of at least 165 – or if it appears pink inside – bake in a 300-degree oven for an additional 15-20 minutes to cook through.

Amelia Plair is a mom and high school teacher in Starkville. Email reaches her at [email protected].

Amelia Plair is a Starkville resident who writes occasional food columns.