Dinner Ideas for the Weekend

Lots of opportunities for this weekend, with the season's produce overflowing, and the hot temperatures inviting more grilling.

With the fresh, wild salmon prices featured at the left (fresh coho at $6.99/lb!), it will be no surprise that grilled salmon will once again be on the menu. I've previously suggested using peaches instead of nectarines in the salsa for grilled salmon with nectarine salsa, and that's certainly still an option. But if you're starting to tire of being surrounded by Palisade peaches, it's also an excellent week for nectarines, with organic ones just 99 cents/lb at Sunflower (88 cents/lb for conventionals at Sprouts). For a side, we'll have a salad from the current issue of Bon Appetit that was a huge success when we tried it before, shaved zucchini salad with parmesan and pine nuts. Here's a great chance to use some of the bumper crop of zucchini, taking care to make sure they're of reasonable size, not like baseball bats, and also organic, since they are shaved raw into this salad. I didn't have pine nuts on hand when I made it last time, and toasted pumpkin seeds made a fine substitution, at about one fifth the cost.

Next, we'll need a big pot of something to serve as a weekday reheat as well, and since I resisted doing a corn chowder last week, we'll have to succumb this week. Not quite sure which one it will be yet, probably either corn and fingerling potato chowder with applewood-smoked bacon or sweet corn chowder with hot-smoked salmon, both from Cooking Light. If the corn weren't such a draw (Munson Farm, here we come again!), I'd be going for the steaks that are 40% off at Sunflower this week.

Another reason we've kept it healthy so far is because the last dinner of the weekend will be a wicked indulgence, smoked country style ribs, coming from Sprouts where boneless ones are just $1.47/lb this week. For a light side, I'm tempted by another veggie from the current Bon Appetit, summer corn saute with tons of herbs. You can take a look at the recipe, but its name pretty much says it all. BTW, the August Bon Appetit has a great article called Singular Sensations, with ideas for savoring those three summer greats: corn, zucchini, and tomatoes. Both this corn recipe and the zucchini salad above are from it, and it has other tempting possibilities as well.

Weekday planning yet to come, while we enjoy the weekend.