Weekday Dinner Ideas

Thinking about some easy dinners for tomorrow through Thursday, it will be time for something involving pasta, so for tomorrow we'll head towards spring with penne with asparagus, spinach and bacon from Cooking Light. Sprouts has the asparagus for $1.99 a pound this week. For the spinach, we've already seen organic at the Boulder Farmers' Market (yeay!), and Sprouts also has it in bulk at a good price. To classy this up, you could consider using a little pancetta instead of the bacon.

For Tuesday, we of course make a pot of something big over the weekend that serves as an easy midweek reheat, and this week it's the smoky shrimp and halibut stew from Bon Appetit. A green salad on the side, perhaps some fresh bread, and you're done.

For Wednesday, we'll turn to the terrific sale Sprouts has on center-cut pork loin chops ($1.99 a pound) and do them simply sauteed with some baked organic yams (back to the Sunflower sale) on the side. The organic chard also on sale at Sunflower makes a great side, sauteed in olive oil with a bit of garlic and a pinch of crushed red pepper.

To finish up with Thursday, we have yet to do a rice dish, and I'm inclined towards shrimp risotto with peas from the New York Times. It seems like we always have raw shrimp on sale somewhere, and maybe Wednesday's new sales will bring something besides the jumbo shrimp currently on sale at Sprouts. For the frozen peas, if not already stocked in your freezer, I'd hope they're among the "select varieties" of excellent Cascadian Farm frozen veggies that Sunflower has on sale through Wednesday. This recipe would be great with a little green garlic from the Farmers' Market added in, and maybe some spinach from there as well. Needless to say, for a weekday meal, I'd skip the step of making the shellfish broth, substituting boxed organic broth instead (Sprouts has Imagine's excellent broth at $2.50 per box through Wednesday, if they can keep it on the shelves with the demand).

And that will get us through to Friday's planning.