Weekend Dinner Ideas

It's Friday already, time to get going with dinner ideas for a pretty warm Boulder weekend. I'm looking at the chicken breast sales and thinking that if our never-ending evening rains finally hold off tonight, we'll be able to grill, doing grilled chicken and ratatouille from Bon Appetit. Sunflower has the boneless skinless chicken breasts for a very good $1.99 a pound this week. (If you prefer to grill bone-in chicken, Sprouts has those for just 88 cents a pound.) The ratatouille makes a nice big salad on the side, and Whole Foods has organic zucchini for $1.49 a pound.

For tomorrow, the fact that Sprouts has great prices on both shrimp and fresh halibut this week spells smoky shrimp and halibut stew from Bon Appetit. Because the halibut hails from California, it tends to be on the smaller side, but the fish guy told me a couple of days ago that they also had some thicker pieces available. I'd hope they'd be willing to skin it, since having a pro do it would save a whole lot of time. I'd cut back on the amount of bacon called for to lighten up the dish, and I'd turn to either Alfalfa's or Whole Foods for it, both having fantastic smoked bacon that you can buy in just the number of pieces you need. For the side salad, both Sprouts and Whole Foods have organic leaf lettuce for around $1.50, and Sunflower has it for 99 cents a head.

For Sunday, we'll turn back to the grill for some of the wonderful wild salmon of the season, which is on sale at Sprouts, Sunflower, and Whole Foods (see the top of this week's deal post for a price comparison, and I'd be sure to buy fresh salmon). With the very first of the season's peaches promised at tomorrow's Boulder Farmer's Market, I might do an adaptation of grilled salmon with nectarine salsa from Bon Appetit, using peaches in place of the nectarines. Foil packages of diced organic sweet potatoes will also go on the grill, and for a side, I'm thinking of sauteed zucchini, cherry tomatoes, olives, and basil. Organic zucchini is a great price this week at Whole Foods, Sprouts has pints of organic grape tomatoes (basically the same as cherry) at the excellent price of $1.99, and my own herb pots are overflowing with basil and rosemary.

And that will get us through a warm, hopefully drier, Boulder weekend.