Weekend Dinner Idea Sketch

I told myself I'd stop posting dinner plans, as it was becoming too time-consuming and even skewing my own thinking in favor of a better post rather than a better plan for myself.  But maybe if I just outline a bit without taking the time and trouble to fill in all those other details will work out sometimes.  So here's a bare sketch for the weekend.

For tonight, I discovered that Whole Foods, at least at the Pearl Street store, is doing a sale on fresh swordfish for $17.99 a pound.  That's only $2 off their regular price, but it doesn't take much incentive to make me grab a beautiful piece of swordfish, which will go on the grill.  Their corn, most recently from Georgia, has also been very nice at 50 cents each.

Tomorrow we'll be back to the fresh wild salmon, trying out Sprouts' fish at $12.99 a pound.  Whole Foods also has it for considerably more (sorry, didn't write it down while I was there, but it was pretty high).  Sides may include a caprese salad using my Crave Brothers fresh mozzarella from Whole Foods' one-day sale Wednesday (reported in a post below), organic tomatoes just $1.25 a pound at Sprouts, and basil from my own herb pots, doing so well in this early summer heat.

We always make something big on the weekend to also serve as an easy midweek reheat, and that becomes something of a challenge for the summer, when big hot casseroles from the oven aren't appealing.  Soups, stews, and chowders are good, but we've done those for at least two weeks in a row.  So I'm thinking we'll head back out to the grill Sunday to do a double batch of a favorite, grilled chicken and ratatouille from Bon Appetit.  I like an exceptional quality chicken breast when it's the star as in this recipe, and this is a good week for choices.  Vitamin Cottage has fresh boneless skinless chicken breasts (free range, air chilled, no antibiotics, etc.) for $5.99 a pound, Sprouts has Rosie's organic boneless skinless ones at $7.99 a pound, and if you want to be naughty and add on the skin (plus bones), Whole Foods has air chilled split breasts for $3.99 a pound.  Decisions, decisions.

So this took more time than I'd hoped also.  Still trying to figure out a balance.