Weekend Dinner Ideas

It's Friday again, so time to get going with dinner ideas for the weekend. I have the boneless, skinless chicken breasts that are $1.97 a pound at Sprouts on the brain, and with organic grape tomatoes also an excellent price there at $1.99 a pint (also good at $2.50 at Sunflower), that spells spicy roast chicken with tomatoes and marjoram from Bon Appetit. The recipe calls for bone-in chicken breasts, which are very tasty if you like some grease in your dishes, but I prefer it with the boneless, skinless ones to lighten it up. Dried marjoram also works well instead of the fresh, obviously using a smaller amount of the dried.

It looks like I'll be doing most of my weekend shopping at Sprouts this week, since for tomorrow, their Alaskan cod sale will turn into cod with sesame and ginger from the New York Times. I fortunately already have black sesame seeds in my kitchen. They're available in bulk at Whole Foods, so you can buy them in small quantities (they have teeny sized bags in the herb section), and my recollection is that Sprouts just has the tan-colored sesame seeds in its bulk aisle. But I bet this recipe would be good with those, too.

For Sunday, my thinking is returning to that chicken at Sprouts, in the form of chicken posole from Food and Wine magazine. I'm adapting again on the chicken, since the recipe calls for all dark meat with the skin on. It will be lighter with the boneless, skinless breasts, but still have plenty of zing with all those lovely garnishes like lime, radish slices, and cilantro.

And that will get us through a weekend of cooking.