Weekend Dinner Ideas

Happy Friday and happy last day of September (sigh), so it's time to get planning some dinner ideas for the weekend.

Tonight's a no-brainer, since I picked up some of the beautiful Columbia River salmon during Whole Food's one-day sale Wednesday, when my dinners were already planned and stocked through yesterday. With a lovely evening for grilling tonight, a great option for this time of year is grilled salmon with roasted corn relish from Cooking Light. The relish capitalizes on the remaining days of our fresh, local corn season while also incorporating roasted green chiles, while we are at the height of that season (roast them yourself as directed in the recipe, or simplify your life and buy them pre-roasted at Sunflower, Whole Foods, or the Farmers' Market). If you aren't lucky enough to have that Whole Foods salmon in your fridge, Sprouts has fresh farmed salmon on sale for $7.99 a pound.

Thinking about those roasted chiles, we've been dabbling with recipes that incorporate them as a flavoring since their first appearance a few weeks ago, but this weekend it's time to go all out by making a big pot of chili itself. (Or is it a big pot of chile? See this post for illumination re the spelling issues.) My recipe comes from a favorite old chile-centered cookbook and therefore doesn't have a link, but this Denver site gives you a selection of "award winning green chili recipes." (Since they're in Denver, rather than New Mexico, it's chili instead of chile.)

We'll want something a little different by Sunday, and with haddock just $3.99 a pound during Sprouts' 72 hour sale through then, I'm thinking about adapting it into a recipe from the current issue of Bon Appetit, baked flounder with tomatoes and basil. Haddock is a versatile fish that I think could easily substitute for the flounder. It's a beautiful time of year for tomatoes, whether from the Farmers' Market or a store (I'd consider the 20 ounce containers of EuroFresh super cherry tomatoes that are just $2.50 each at Sunflower, since EuroFresh promises to be pesticide-free), and the basil will come from my own herb plants, which continue to need a whacking, despite my best efforts.

And that will get us through to the weekday planning, our first for October.