Last night I chose one low-effort dish (roasted sweet potato fries) and one higher-effort dish, Chicken Paillard with a cider mustard sauce from the newest Cook's Illustrated.

As it turns out, the Chicken Paillard, with a little mise en place (which I always, always, always type out as mise en scene the first time around. Those French must invade all aspects of my life, apparently), was not very high effort at all. The cutlets cooked in a flash, and I turned the oven with the just done roast sweet potato fries down to 200 and put the cutlets in to keep warm while I made the pan sauce. Easy as pie. The sauce was sweet but tangy- I used Annie's Horseradish mustard in both the pan sauce and the aioli I made to go with the fries. The chicken was super tender and moist. I highly recommend it. The whole meal took forty minutes of no-effort work (roasting the potatoes, which took 3 minutes to cut into fries, as well) and then 15 minutes of actual work, including prep, for the chicken and sauce. I didn't make the aioli while the sauce was reducing, but you could.

My endless quest for simple, easy meals that don't involve ready made high sodium Sandra Lee crap continues successfully.