More Dinners For This Week

Looks like we've finally escaped a snowstorm, and things are going to warm up around here! Continuing to think about dinners, I'll celebrate with shrimp risotto with peas, one of the New York Times' recipes for health. Will undoubtedly cheat by skipping the shrimp stock step, using stock from a box instead. Raw shrimp are on sale for $3.97/lb at Sunflower, but I have a pound in my freezer from an even better prior sale at Sprouts.

Then it's an easy dinner finishing off the rest of the potato and root vegetable chowder from earlier in the week, keeping in mind the leaf lettuce that's $1.50 at Sunflower for the side salad.

Looking to a pasta dish, and with chicken breast/tenders at a good price at both Sprouts and Sunflower, I'll do a pasta dish with chicken and artichoke hearts that's kind of a combination of ideas. It's starting point is probably Cooking Light's recipe for kamut spirals with chicken-artichoke wine sauce, using a regular whole wheat pasta instead. But I find this tastes kind of flat using the rinsed canned artichokes, so I prefer a smaller amount of marinated artichokes, including the marinade. Sometimes I'll toss in some broccoli flowerettes, making the dish close to a wonderful one called Scoozi that's served at Carelli's fantastic restaurant.

Finally, with pork chops $2.99/lb at Sprouts and $3.99/lb at Sunflower, depending on where you're shopping anyway, pork chops sauteed with a little garlic and finished with a splash of balsamic vinegar will make an easy finish to this week's dinners. Don't forget that Whole Foods has some beautiful organic chard on sale through Tuesday at $1.50 a bunch for a side veggie, and organic russet potatoes (88 cents a pound at Sunflower) microwave pretty decently and quickly.

And that does it for the week. If this week's warmup continues, next week will be on to grilling!