Weekday Dinner Ideas

Goodness, it's Sunday already, so time to get the rest of the week's dinner ideas in order. We'll be in the mood for pasta by tomorrow, and with organic spinach just $1.50 a bunch at Whole Foods through Tuesday, I'm planning on penne with asparagus, spinach, and bacon from Cooking Light. When a bunch of organic spinach is such a good deal, I don't mind ripping it up myself instead of buying bagged. I also want to enjoy asparagus while it's still around (although there aren't any particular sales on it this week, I have a raincheck from Sunflower's stellar $1.27 a pound sale).

By Tuesday, something based on rice, and also vegetarian would appeal, so I'm thinking about a new recipe in the current issue of Cooking Light, summer lemon-vegetable risotto. This would also make a lovely side dish for something like the teriyaki wild salmon burgers on sale for $7.99 a pound at Whole Foods through Tuesday. For the risotto, our organic squash is starting to be local, although local snap peas are on their way out. As for the asparagus, again I'll be buying from that raincheck, sorry about that.

By Wednesday, we'll want to capitalize once more (as we're doing tonight) on Sprouts' excellent price on chicken tenders for $1.88 a pound, so my plan is to do yet another Cooking Light recipe, chicken paprikash. I seem to be on a roll with Cooking Light this week, even though I more often cook from Bon Appetit. The caraway seeds called for in this recipe really make the dish, and if you don't have or want a whole bottle of them, they're often available in the bulk spices, where you can buy just the teaspoon needed. This dish is great served over wide noodles, which 99.9% of the time are egg noodles, which pack a cholesterol wallop. If that's something you watch, I'm thrilled to report that Whole Foods, at least at the Pearl Street store, now carries a yolk-free brand.

Since it will be warm all week, and Thursday is currently predicted to be 94, we'll turn back to Mark Bittman for hot weather foods with his 101 20-Minute Ideas for Inspired Picnics, ideas that serve as easy dinners, too. This time, I'm aiming for number eight, cold peanut noodles. Its name doesn't exactly appeal, but believe me, it's delicious. I make it with sobas instead of the Chinese egg noodles called for, thereby adding the benefit of whole grain buckwheat while subtracting the previously mentioned downside of the cholesterol of egg noodles. There will be new sales by Thursday, but Sunflower has 31/40 count cooked shrimp on sale for $7.99 a pound through Wednesday.

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