A Week's Worth of Dinner Ideas

So many good deals to work with this week, with cheap chicken, pork, cod, and asparagus especially on my mind. One way to start might be nice, light cod with Mediterranean salsa, from Gourmet magazine (RIP), maybe with asparagus as the side veggie, since Sprouts has great deals this week on both cod ($4.99/lb) and asparagus (88 cents/lb).

Have to do something with Sprouts' chicken tenders at $1.69/lb and it's time for pasta. One I like is a pasta with chicken, mushrooms, spinach and ricotta, but everybody has their own spin on pasta with chicken.

With pork chops or roasts $1.69/lb at Sprouts, think I'll chop some up for pork and pozole with chipotles from the New York Times. Hope you remember how easy it is to have chipotles ready to use from the fridge with this already posted tip. For your side salad, don't forget that Whole Foods has organic romas for $1/lb.

Back to that 88 cent asparagus, I haven't yet gotten enough of asparagus and leek risotto with prosciutto from Bon Appetit. Remember that the Pearl Street Whole Foods carries nice chunks of cooking prosciutto in the deli at a much lower price than the freshly sliced. Also, Sunflower has a parmesan at $6.99/lb this week.

Of course the pozole makes a big pot of soup, good enough for a second round.

Talking about Wednesday, the 24th, one possibility I've mentioned is the incredible wine dinner deal that the 14th Street Bar and Grill will be hosting. Or, we haven't had rice yet this week, so an easy midweek option is to saute more of the $1.69/lb chicken tenders from Sprouts and turn them into a stir fry by adding garlic, hot pepper flakes, and ginger, then tossing in a defrosted package of frozen Oriental mixed veggies, the whole thing served over hot rice. If you keep a package of the veggies stocked in your freezer, you can do this quickly with any meat, shrimp, or tofu for a very easy meal.

Finally, one last fling with the 88 cent asparagus, maybe a quick penne with asparagus, spinach and bacon from Cooking Light, using more of Sunflower's sale parmesan.

Hope next week offers as many good deals as this! You might want to stock your freezer with some of this week's very good deals so you won't be paying more when the prices jump back up.