The Rest of This Week's Dinner Ideas

Have been a little slow to return to dinner planning, perhaps since I'm still basking in the glow of New Year's Eve's potato gratin with Gruyere. After something that spectacular, the healthy, mundane weekday plans just don't rev me up. But we all have to eat, so here goes.

It's been a while since pasta has been on the menu, so for tonight, we'll do a spin on mushroom and sausage ragu with polenta from Cooking Light, serving the delicious ragu on pasta instead (but it's also great on polenta). The big side salad will include plenty of organic lettuce and baby carrots from the two-day sale that ended yesterday at Whole Foods.

Then of course there will be a reprise of something, this week the black eyed peas with ham and greens that was our (hopefully) lucky New Year's Day dinner. That means we'll get to finish off the rest of the green onion corn bread from Bon Appetit too, along with another lovely salad.

Then, with so many fish specials happening, I warned that this would be a fishy week, so I'll definitely grab some of the Copper River salmon while it's still available at $7.99/lb at Sprouts through Wednesday. A simple baked potato (yes, I still have some from the Vitamin Cottage sale!) and green veggie like chard will round it out.

Then to finish off the week's planning, we need something with rice, so I'm thinking of trying the beef, shiitake, and snow pea stir fry that was in a recent issue of Bon Appetit, served over brown rice. A little edamame steamed on the side is always good, and always available from the freezer.

So that brings us back to earth with weekday planning to launch us into the realities of the new year. Happy cooking!