The Rest of This Week's Dinner Ideas

Finally back to menu planning, I see an interesting comparison of recipes for tonight. I've been wanting to try the recipe Mark Bittman published last month in the New York Times, pasta with peas, prosciutto and lettuce. Learning the news of asparagus for 88 cents a pound at Lucky's, I was reminded of pasta with peas, asparagus, butter lettuce, and prosciutto, with was published in Bon Appetit in April 2009. So I'll follow Bittman's much simpler cooking technique, while adding in the asparagus and maybe the parsley from the Bon Appetit approach. A winner all around.

Then with the temperatures heading way up, nearing 100 on Tuesday, we'll simplify and perhaps totally cheat by reheating some of the huge veggie pizza I recently made, with a big salad on the side. The balls of fresh dough from Whole Foods fill an entire cookie sheet, which makes for one heck of a large pizza.

Having had pasta, pizza, and potatoes already this week, we'll be looking for something with rice, and will again turn to a risotto with fresh mozzarella and herbs from my herb pots. Fresh mozzarella is on sale at Sunflower for $2.99 for a half pound ball, or $3.99 for a full pound ball at Whole Foods (all though there was none on the shelf yesterday at the Pearl Street store). More of the incredibly priced asparagus from Lucky's will also come into play - not sure if it will be incorporated into the risotto or served as the side veggie.

Finally, looking for another cool and easy dinner option, I made a dangerous discovery this weekend: Whole Foods has fried chicken in their deli for $5.99 a pound this week, in both white and dark meat pieces. I usually cook everything from scratch and pretty much never eat fried foods, but this stuff looks really, really good. Perhaps an indulgence once a year can be excused.

So stay cool, and that does it for the week.