More Dinners For This Week

Moving on to the rest of the week, we're fans of chicken sausage and also love our fresh spring and summer greens, so we might once again enjoy sausage risotto with spring greens from Bon Appetit. The sausage will come from the sale at Sprouts, and the choices for the greens are everywhere, from the Farmers Market to my favorite farmstands to the nice bulk bin of braising greens that the Pearl Street Whole Foods store maintains.

Then as usual, we'll capitalize on the lengthier weekend cooking with a quick reheat for a midweek dinner, this time rewarming the sweet corn chowder with hot-smoked salmon from Cooking Light, with a big salad on the side. The bread from Whole Foods' Bakehouse will come out of the freezer, much as I'd prefer to have it fresh from the store. You can only make so many trips a week to get your fresh ingredients.

We'll be looking for a seasonally appropriate pasta dish next, and something vegetarian would be nice, so we'll turn to a great Mark Bittman recipe from the New York Times, pasta with corn, zucchini and tomatoes. This recipes lends itself to all kinds of adaptations, depending on the types of tomatoes and squash available and your inclination regarding the seasonings. I like to play it with a southwestern spin, using chili powder and cilantro instead of the tarragon.

Finally, time to get back to some meat, and with beef stew beef $3.99/lb at Sunflower ($4.49/lb at Sprouts), I'm thinking sirloin steak with tomato and cilantro sauce from Bon Appetit. Okay, so stew beef isn't sirloin steak, but it works just as well in this recipe. It produces the most delicious sauce, and typically would be wrapped up in tortillas, but it has been a while since we've had potatoes on the menu, so this time we'll serve it over microwaved "baked" potatoes. That's a very good combination as well.

And that does it for the rest of the week.