Dinner Plans for the Weekend

Happy Friday, and time to get plans together for tonight through Sunday. I have my eye on the sea scallops that are on sale at Sprouts for $10.99 a pound for tonight, and a favorite way to do them is grilled sea scallops and tomatoes with olive vinaigrette from Gourmet magazine. Note that the"grilling" only requires a grill pan, so it's a perfect preparation for winter. The tomatoes work best using slices of a nice round one like a beefsteak, but I bet I can finagle something with organic romas that are $1.49 a pound, and excellent price, at Whole Foods. You can also take the lazy but speedy route with this recipe and substitute some lemon squeezes for the vinaigrette, but if you have the time, the sauce is worth it.

For tomorrow, I'm looking at a pasta dish, and with 41/50 count ez peel shrimp on sale at both Sprouts and Sunflower (Sunflower wins with $3.97 a pound, $4.99 a pound at Sprouts), I'm thinking it will be linguine with spicy shrimp from Cooking Light. For the pasta, note that Luigi Vitelli pastas are on sale at Sunflower for just 99 cents each (1 pound packages). The ad says "select varieties," but when they've done this in the past, the organic whole wheat ones have been included, a fabulous price. Stock up alert! Afternoon update: the whole wheat pasta unfortunately isn't included this time, a first in my experience. But its perennial "sale" price of $1.39 is great anyway.

We have fantastic whole chicken options happening right now, with today's one-day sale on organic ones at Whole Foods, and Rocky Jr. ones on sale at Sprouts through Wednesday (see this post for details), so Sunday's dinner will just have to be a classic roast chicken. We also have excellent prices on organic veggies to chop up, toss with a bit of olive oil and herbs, and roast on the side, including yams for 99 cents a pound at Sunflower, and potatoes, yellow onions (Sunflower also has red), and carrots on sale at both Sunflower and Sprouts. Toss in a few parsnip chunks too for a delicious taste. Recipes for roast chicken and veggies abound, but common sense will get you there as well.

And that will get us through the weekend, with more planning to come.