Weekday Dinner Ideas

Goodness, Sunday morning is already marching along (temperatures in the 60s today, Boulder!), so I'd better get going with dinner plans for the rest of the week. I still have fish on the brain following that Wall Street Journal I've already mentioned, so tomorrow will involve the fresh wild mahi mahi that Sprouts has on sale for $9.99 a pound. (That's actually a bit of awkward planning, as I'll want to pick it up tomorrow for freshness, assuming they don't get Sunday deliveries.) It will either hit the grill pan as a fillet, or since mahi makes the best fish tacos (IMHO), it might find itself in a corn tortilla as crispy snapper tacos with tropical fruit salsa from Gourmet magazine. I certainly don't double fry the taco shells, and sometimes even substitute a good purchased salsa for the one made from scratch. I used to be a slave to recipes, until I realized they can be convenient starting points instead.

Tuesday will be our usual reheat of something big made over the weekend, which this week is last night's excellent quick coq au vin from Bon Appetit. All I'll need to do is add a veggie on the side, and maybe some crusty bread (I've really been getting into Whole Foods' new wheat sourdough baguettes, with apologies to my gluten-intolerant friends).

We'll want something with an Asian spin by Wednesday, and with chicken tenders $1.99 a pound and organic broccoli 99 cents a pound at Sprouts, and asparagus 87 cents a pound at Sunflower ($1.49 at Sprouts, still quite cheap), that absolutely screams for chicken, asparagus and broccoli stir-fry from Bon Appetit. Served over brown rice, that will also give us our rice dish for the week.

We'll round out the week with a simple saute of pork chops (center-cut boneless chops $2.99 a pound at Sprouts through Wednesday), with microwaved "baked" organic russets on the side (Sprouts has been doing five pound bags of them for $2.99 each for several weeks). The organic spinach bunches Sprouts has for 99 cents each through Wednesday would be good sauteed on the side, with a bit of garlic and a pinch of crushed red pepper.

And that will get us through to Friday's planning. Enjoy today's warm temperatures (heading close to 70 by Tuesday!), so long as our persistent winds don't interfere.