Getting Started on This Week's Dinners

My dinner plans run from Fridays to Thursdays (a habit dating back to a very old work schedule), and I'm usually rushing to get the Friday plan together, but this week I seem to be a little more organized. This week's a bit of a transition - starting to let go of summer produce a bit, but not yet ready to embrace fall. And with the last of the fresh wild Columbia River salmon just $5.99/lb at Sprouts, it will be a salmon-centric week.

So starting with tomorrow, what could be better than some of that salmon on the grill? I don't like to mess with it much (why ruin a beautiful piece of fish with something like a maple glaze?), so it will get a squeeze of lemon, and maybe a fruit salsa on the side. In a nod to the late summer/early fall produce scene, we'll also have grilled eggplant salad from Cooking Light, using the beautiful eggplant and tomatoes from the Wednesday Farmers Market.

With turkey tenderloins $3.99/lb at Sunflower this week, penne with turkey and wild mushrooms from Bon Appetit sounds appealing for our next dish. This recipe actually comes from a Boulderite, Joan Brett, and it sounds like something that might ease me into a more fall-like mood. It says it can be done in 45 minutes or less, which for me translates into more than an hour, and that spells weekend cooking.

To end the weekend, we haven't yet done a big dish that can serve as a quick midweek reheat, and I've found a good one to get more of that fresh coho from Sprouts into the plan. While most salmon chowders call for smoked salmon, Whole Foods has one that uses a good hunk of fresh fillet, so we'll do their version of salmon chowder. The bacon will come from Whole Foods to be sure it's nitrite-free, but we're fortunate to have Sprouts for the price on the salmon.

So that gets us through the weekend planning, with more to come.