This Week's Dinners

I haven't quite finished my planning for the week, but here's how things are shaping up. Last night we had a great, vegetarian eggplant pasta dish that I found in Cooking Light magazine. I use regular whole wheat pasta (perpetually on sale at Sunflower) rather than rice pasta, and eggplant is pretty cheap everywhere right now. The jarred spaghetti sauce really speeds things up. While the Muir Glen sauce they recommend is great, all the Boulder stores offer their own brands for a lot less, unless you catch a good Muir Glen sale. Last night I tried Sprouts' own brand for the first time, and was really impressed that they offered a No Salt Added marinara in their own line. How often do you see that? Dinner had salad on the side, our usual with pasta.

Tonight I'm cheating, pulling some Copper River salmon out of the freezer. I froze a whole bunch during its brief season, and am now reaping the benefits. By the way, when Copper River was in season last June, King Soopers and Safeway were duking it out with low prices as lead-ins to their stores. Always worth a sidetrip for something like that. So now I'm eating Copper River salmon for less than I'd pay today for run of the mill, also previously frozen, sockeye at any store. Along with the fish, we'll have organic baked potatoes that finish off the great five pound bag sale Whole Foods had a couple of weeks ago, and an organic acorn squash picked up a week ago at a Sunflower, when they had organic on sale for less than conventional. Okay, not so helpful for your next shopping trip, but stocking up on things that last while at great deals is part of the strategy.

Tomorrow, we'll do a rare beef indulgence, as Sprouts is advertising New York steaks at an astonishing $3.99/lb. Can't vouch for them until we try them, but at that price, wow. I'll accompany them with a couple of dishes that don't have links. One is a baked tomato casserole from a cookbook my dear mother gave me, involving layers of tomatoes, thinly sliced onions, shredded cheddar (I know, steaks and cheddar, there goes the cholesterol), fresh bread crumbs, and chives or scallions. The reason I thought of this dish is that Sunflower has organic hothouse tomatoes for $1.99/lb this week. Last I looked, romas were also $1.99/lb at Whole Foods (12/12 update, they're back up to $2.99/lb), but this dish needs a round tomato, which can be pricey at this time of year. The other side dish will be a caraway cabbage one I haven't tried yet, involving cider vinegar, sugar, caraway seeds, bunches of shredded cabbage, and a cup of cooked beets. Something to balance out the richness of the steaks and tomato/cheese casserole. We'll see how that turns out.

Will post later about the sausage and sweet potato soup planned for Sunday (with an easy reprise later in the week) and the low fat Fettucine Alfredo planned for Monday. Now it's time to cook dinner!