Weekday Dinner Ideas

With more snow expected to start this evening, on top of all that has already recently fallen in Boulder, it's time to get the rest of the week's dinners organized. I checked out the quite large 16/25 count "broken" shrimp that Sunflower has for $5.97 a pound, and they looked handsomely intact, which suggests to me the nicey seasonal butternut squash risotto with shrimp from Bon Appetit for tomorrow. Although I'll be pretty tired of it by March, I'm still in my pre-winter butternut nesting phase, can't get enough of it. Organic butternut is 99 cents a pound at Sunflower, and since it gets peeled, an even cheaper conventional might be a possibility.

Tuesday will be our customary reheat of something big made over the weekend, which this week will be the cod, potato, and fennel casserole from Gourmet magazine. A comfort veggie like sauteed chard will go on the side.

We'll want some pasta on the menu by Wednesday, and looking back to those shrimp from Sunflower and wanting something quick and easy, it will be spicy shrimp and fettucine from Cooking Light. Rather than using plum tomatoes, I'll check out the organic hothouse tomatoes that Sunflower has for $1.99 a pound through that day.

I'll pick up some of the sale chicken sausage at Sprouts by Wednesday (although chicken sausage is always cheap anyway), to feature it in a quick dinner for Thursday, chicken sausage and polenta. I'll wing it, sauteing the sausage with some bell pepper and quality jarred pasta sauce, and making the easy polenta in a three to one ratio of liquid to polenta, with a bit of parmesan added at the end. If you want to complicate your life by following a recipe, mushroom and sausage ragu with polenta from Cooking Light is a good one.

And that will get us through a cold week with more snow on the way. Stay warm.