Weekday Dinner Ideas

Weekday dinners that include Valentine's Day isn't exactly an ordinary planning process, but here goes. I always make something big over the weekend that serves as an easy reheat, usually on Tuesday, but since that would be pretty tacky for Valentine's Day, our reheat will come tomorrow instead. This week it's the baked rigatoni with ricotta and collard greens from MyRecipes.com. Some of the fresh asparagus that's under a dollar a pound at both Sprouts and Sunflower this week steamed on the side will make for a super-easy dinner.

For Valentine's Day on Tuesday, I'm something of a purist. I don't think it's a good idea to serve your sweetie some artery-clogging dish on any day of the year, much less on the one devoted to love. So I'll be going with a healthy but special favorite, salmon, mustard greens and potatoes with mustard-dill glaze from Bon Appetit. I'll likely need to go to Whole Foods for the mustard greens, so the salmon will come from their fine fish department as well. A little chocolate to end the meal won't hurt, either.

We'll be back to basics by Wednesday, with the very nice center-cut boneless pork chops Sprouts has on sale for $2.99 a pound. Microwaved "baked" potatoes will go on the side, possibly with more of that asparagus on sale under a dollar a pound at both Sprouts and Sunflower.

For Thursday, that 99 cent sale on organic cauliflower at Sprouts through Wednesday (organic cauliflower also $1.50 a pound at Sunflower through Wednesday and $1.99 a pound at Whole Foods through Tuesday) has me thinking about revisiting an old Moosewood cookbook recipe for cauliflower paprikash. Coming from an old cookbook, it isn't online directly, but you can find a repost of the recipe here. I think at the restaurant you'd find it served over homemade spaetzle, but for a midweek vegetarian dinner, I'd say anything goes.

Which will get us through to Friday's planning.