Sunday, November 20, 2011

Weekday Dinner Plans, Minus Thanksgiving

This is a monumentally big week for planning dinners. I have through Wednesday figured out, while I'm still finessing the Thanksgiving details. With Thanksgiving looming, my planning is being colored by a desire for lighter fare without poultry, in addition to the usual seasonality and good organic deals, which means the pressure is on. Tomorrow will therefore be Thai beef cabbage cups from last month's issue of Cooking Light. Sprouts has ground beef at 30% off, and Sunflower is doing a sale too. Served on cabbage or even lettuce cups, this dish meets all my criteria for the week, and it was a huge hit with the family when I first tried it last month. It's the best recipe I've encountered yet for the dish I've long extolled as laab, larb, or laap.

We always have something big made over the weekend that serves as an easy midweek reheat, and this week it will be the black bean chili with butternut squash and Swiss chard from Bon Appetit. It's seasonal, vegetarian (aside from my opting for chicken stock), and just plain yummy.

There hasn't been any pasta on the menu yet for the week, so for Wednesday, we'll turn back to Sprouts' $1.27 a pound asparagus on the last day of that sale to do a veggie-laden pasta dish, fettucine with peas, asparagus, and pancetta from Bon Appetit. It just has a touch of pancetta for flavor, and I'd normally omit the cream from something like this, but the CBS morning show just did a feature on fat being good for us, so maybe it will stay in, woohoo!

Which gets us to Thanksgiving day, which is nearly figured out, more to come.

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