Weekend Dinner Ideas

For a weekend that's going to be filled with raking leaves (why haven't we had big Boulder winds to blow them across the street, where they have landscaping crews?), I'd better get the dinner plans out of the way. Tonight will be a healthy fish, and I'm intrigued by a new recipe from the October issue of Cooking Light, salmon with red pepper pesto. We're sadly out of the fresh wild salmon season, but there are some frozen wild caught salmon options around, including sockeye at Sprouts for $8.99 a pound. I'm also thinking about another recipe from that same Cooking Light issue, roasted sweet potato salad with cranberry-chipotle dressing to go on the side, assuming I have that much ambition. Sprouts has organic yams for $1.29 a pound, and this might even be a tryout for Thanksgiving.

With today's one-day sale at Whole Foods on whole chickens for $1.29 a pound, tomorrow is going to be a simple, seasonal roast chicken with roasted winter veggies like organic squash on the side, no recipe needed. Sunflower has organic acorn, butternut, spaghetti squash and pie pumpkins all at 99 cents a pound (I wonder how a small pie pumpkin would do if wedged for roasting - probably great), and Sunflower also has organic leeks for $1.99 a pound.

For Sunday, needing something big for a midweek reheat, and also thinking about those organic leeks at Sunflower, I'll do an old favorite, potato-leek chowder, from Jane Brody's Good Food Book. I don't have a link for the old cookbook, but recipes for this abound, such as this one from Cooking Light, which also incorporates cauliflower and looks kind of tempting. Organic potatoes and cauliflower are also on sale at Sunflower at good prices, in addition to the organic leeks. Salad will go on the side, as well as some fresh bread from the Whole Foods bakehouse, perhaps the rosemary sourdough that's on sale for $2.99 a loaf.

And that will get us through a backbreaking weekend of leaf raking. Happy fall, and happy 11/11/11.