Weeknight Dinner Ideas

Actually starting with tonight, since I never got around to that post. This relentless heat is driving me towards picnic-type food, so that's what will be on deck. Rather than heating the house with cooking this evening, I've already cooked some salmon burgers I picked up for an extraordinary $1.99 each at the Longmont Lucky's (last time they did that sale it was the same at the Boulder store, but no time to check now), and we'll have them either chilled or room temperature with a squeeze of lemon tonight. Using the last of my beautiful beets from Red Wagon Organic Farm, I've also made the simple and very fresh beet salad from Mark Bittman's 100 20-Minute Dishes for Inspired Picnics from the New York Times. It's actually the very first idea in his list. A cool dinner for a hot evening.

With fresh wild salmon fillets just $9.99 a pound at Sprouts through Wednesday, there's no reason to reserve that for a weekend dinner, so it's the plan for tomorrow. I was originally going to do it indoors on the grill pan, but as the heat will continue through tomorrow, we might just have to send the family griller outside instead.

With the heat, I wasn't in a mood to concoct a big chowder or heaven forbid a hot casserole this weekend, so instead of a reheat, our super easy dinner for Tuesday will be a real cheat, since I just picked up a bucket of cooked chicken for $6.99 at Whole Foods on today, the last day of their weekend sale. At least I somehow managed to resist their buttermilk-brined fried version, opting for the slightly more virtuous straight bbq style instead.

We'll want some sort of pasta by Wednesday, and the temperatures should have cooled back to the 80s to accommodate it. It should also be something vegetarian following our chicken bucket binge, but I'm afraid I haven't quite figured out what it will be yet. Ditto for Thursday on the planning, but more salmon burgers from Lucky's sale through Wednesday remain a possibility. I like them even better than the ones Whole Foods does, and Lucky's sale price is half the price Whole Foods charges, even when on sale.