Weekend Dinner Plans (Not)

This exemplifies why I've largely stopped posting the menu plans that were the genesis of this blog at the request of friends. As time went on, I found myself always expecting to do links to gourmet recipes instead of the simplicity of my original decent cooking for a busy life, then it was further complicated by the opening of the Lucky's Market in Longmont with some very good specials, in my travel path, unlike the north Boulder Lucky's. So why share menus focusing on specials outside my supposed Boulder coverage, and reverting to simplicity? Case in point is this weekend, when tonight we'll do the easy option of crab cakes from the Longmont Lucky's for just $2.99 each (the Boulder store may also have them but possibly/probably not at that price, no time to check). With beautiful weather still in store for Saturday (Monday and Tuesday look like a wild return to seasonal and/or winter after this warm weather), we'll send the family griller out in the dark to do the New York strip steaks previously reported as a one-day sale at Whole Foods today (look just below). Then for Sunday I'll turn to an old favorite, chicken paprikash from Cooking Light, given that the Longmont Lucky's has natural boneless skinless chicken breasts for just $1.98 a pound through Wednesday. I doubt the Boulder Lucky's has that price, as I've mentioned before, the Boulder store goes with the higher "never ever" standards, while Longmont goes with natural and tested for antibiotics. Anyway, that's the plan, for what it's worth.

Dinner Ideas For The Week (Almost)

Almost, because I haven't figured out next Thursday yet, but that's always something super simple like a salmon burger or pork chop. While I usually turn to the Boulder natural grocery specials for inspiration, other things factor in, and this week that includes using my final Red Wagon Organic Farm CSA pickup for the year, a forecast of lovely dry weather for the weekend, and the Daylight Savings change bearing down on us soon, all of which adds up to grilling for the weekend!

For tonight, some of the beautiful Norwegian salmon from Whole Foods' one-day sale today (look a few posts below for details) will go on the grill, along with some foil packages of organic fingerling potatoes that I captured Tuesday on the last day of Whole Foods' nearly half price sale, dressed with olive oil and a bit of parsley. I'm hoping to get some of our last ears of Munson corn for the season later today (haven't been out there recently, and I hope they haven't been hit by any freak frost).

Tomorrow will be back to the grill, this time with boneless NY strip steaks that the Lucky's Market in Longmont has for just $5.98 a pound this week. Sorry no time to check Boulder Lucky's, but I'd bet this special is limited to Longmont, as it's the "natural" meat they do there, as opposed to the "never ever" meats of the Boulder Lucky's. For a side, I'll try a new recipe from Bon Appetit, squash with dates and thyme, although if Whole Foods still has figs, I might already tinker with the recipe by substituting those. Brussels sprouts from the CSA pickup will also go nicely with the steaks.

Still needing something big on the weekend that will also serve as an easy midweek reheat, wanting something vegetarian after those steaks, wanting to give the family griller a break, and also needing to use the lovely collard greens from my CSA pickup, that absolutely calls for baked rigatoni with ricotta and collard greens from Cooking Light. With the oven going, I might try roasting my sunchokes from Red Wagon too (one last challenge from the CSA!).

I'm grabbing some smoked gouda from Whole Foods during this weekend's three-day sale with a favorite pizza in mind for Monday, barbecue chicken pizza from Bon Appetit. I have plenty of chicken breasts in my freezer from Lucky's excellent sale, but both Sprouts and Whole Foods are offering special prices on them this week (look below to the Wednesday sale post).

Tuesday will be our easy reheat of something big made over the weekend, which this week is the baked rigatoni casserole. Salad on the side will keep it extra simple.

With a freezer full of batches of my own pesto, for Wednesday I want to try a new pasta recipe from Bon Appetit, pasta with pesto, shrimp and cured ham from Bon Appetit. Sprouts has some already peeled shrimp on sale through Wednesday.

So aside from having not yet planned Thursday, which is always something simple, that gets us through a full week and uses all the bounty of my final Red Wagon CSA pickup for the season.

A Weekend For A Fish Stew

With previously frozen cod fillets just $5.99 a pound and 41/50 count shrimp $4.97 a pound at the Lucky's Market in Longmont, that is just screaming for me to do a longtime favorite this weekend, smoky shrimp and halibut stew from Bon Appetit. As I've said before, making it with cod instead of hiding a $25 a pound piece of halibut in it makes a whole lot more sense. Unfortunately, the Lucky's in Boulder isn't advertising either of those specials (although they do have their yummy salmon burgers for $2.99 each), but our Boulder Sprouts stores have cod a bit higher at $7.99 a pound this week and sea scallops $8.99 a pound, bet they'd sub well for the shrimp.

Summer Tomato Pastas

My idea of a great dinner at this time of year is loads of fresh veggies (our Red Wagon CSA is certainly helping with that) and a nice piece of grilled fresh fish. But with a long distance runner in the family, pasta also has to appear frequently, and with local tomatoes finally coming in, I'm on the prowl for new ideas to use them with pasta. The current issues of Cooking Light and Bon Appetit have already given me three ideas, and I'm not yet finished reading the latter one. One of these is likely to be on our table this week: Curtis Stone's pasta shells with salsa cruda or BLT pasta, both published in Cooking Light, or spicy lobster pasta from Bon Appetit, which notes it can also be made with shrimp instead.

As for the rest of the week, we'll primarily be motivated by using the bounty from our CSA pickup. All the zucchini went on the grill last night, along with a nice piece of wild salmon (fortunately our rain shower timed itself for earlier in the day). For the giant bag of green beans, I could resort to the ground beef and green beans recipe from Jane Brody again (Sprouts has grass-fed organic ground beef for $4.99 a pound through Wednesday), but for variety, I might do a spin on Asian-flavored seared tuna with green beans from Bon Appetit, possibly trying it with swordfish instead, although I do like my swordfish naked except for lemon, hmmm. And crab cakes will also make an appearance while they are $2.99 each at the Longmont Lucky's through Wednesday (usually $1 more at the Boulder Lucky's, no time to check right now). I do seem to be on a protracted roll with fish.

Weekend Dinner Plans

Quick rundown, and they're so simple. With such a lovely, rare rainy day today in Boulder, we couldn't have a better day for Whole Foods' one-day sale on roasted chickens, $5 for natural and $8 for organic, way off their usual prices for such fine and tasty birds. I'll also pick up a five pound bag of organic potatoes at Sprouts for mashers on the side, since organic russets, red or Yukon potatoes are all $3.98 a bag, and that will leave me with a good stock for later use too. For a side veggie, so many choices from my CSA pickup yesterday.

Tomorrow will be some salmon fillet, probably the fresh sockeye that's $9.99 a pound at Sprouts. Whole Foods has a great sale on very expensive king salmon all weekend, but with more storms threatened for tomorrow afternoon, I have a feeling the fish will land on a grill pan indoors rather than out on the grill, so I'd rather go with the cheaper choice. I will pick up some of the organic figs on sale for the weekend at Whole Foods, since they can just be munched as is if they don't get to go out on the grill.

For Sunday, I think I'll finally get my chance to make corn and green chile chowder from the Food Network, with roasted chiles from Whole Foods and Munson's corn, of course. Seems like every time I've planned that since chiles and corn arrived, something's come up to change course, but Sunday finally looks like the day.

Stay dry and enjoy the rain!

An Abundance Of Veggies

What a delightful dilemma to have. What, oh what am I going to do with all the glorious veggies from this week's Red Wagon Organic Farm pickup? I thought they were giving us plenty at the start of the season, but evidently the offerings grow even larger as the harvest progresses. This week I have leeks, carrots, green beans, beets with beautiful greens, kohrabi (braving it again and it was actually good on the grill last night), zucchini, and a big bunch of parsley, despite having parsley in my own herb garden. What occurs to me for tonight is a recipe for vegetable-bean soup with pistou from my beloved Jane Brody's Good Food Book. Being from an old cookbook it doesn't have a link, but this recipe from Bon Appetit for vegetable soup with pistou is quite similar. The soup would use up the leeks, some of the carrots, some zucchini, and some of the giant bag of green beans, still leaving me with a whole bunch of veggies in the fridge. I could make the pistou from scratch as one of my basil plants is ready for that, but I prefer to do that in a large quantity at the end of the season and because of that, I fortunately have one last container of pesto in the freezer from last year's bounty. So lots of CSA veggies in the pot, plus this will make for an easy midweek reheat dinner as well. Beyond tonight, well I still have to figure that out.

Can I Get To Pearl Whole Foods Today?

With Boulder's first full Ironman triathlon happening all over town (and the county) today, it occurred to me in the middle of the night that maybe I might not be able to get to the Pearl Street Whole Foods today to get my first of the season freshly roasted Hatch chiles for tonight's corn and green chile chowder, also including Munson's corn. But checking out the Camera's street closure article, it appears I should have no problem, as the street closures are basically all downtown. Looks like Boulder's extensive network of bike paths and underpasses must be serving it well for this race. On an unrelated note, if you go to the Camera site to see the street closures, I'd highly recommend also checking out the article about a "service animal" snake on a local bus.

Hatch Green Chiles Already Here!

Uh oh, I regard this as welcome news but also a harbinger of the end of summer, so get the rest of those hot weather plans in line! The Pearl Street Whole Foods has a sign out front announcing that they will be roasting the first of the Hatch green chiles this weekend. That means I'll be doing a corn and green chile chowder to celebrate this weekend, probably on Sunday after fresh wild salmon going on the grill tomorrow from Sprouts (see below for prices). As already noted many times, the fresh Munson's farm corn has arrived to support all this, including a side for the grilled salmon so we are really in gear, perhaps some psychic support to all those amazing people doing the Boulder's Ironman triathlon this weekend.

A Few Dinner Ideas

Since I made the decision to release myself from my self-imposed prison of posting our menus for every single day, every single week, I find I've not only returned to enjoying menu planning, but also returned to simpler cooking, no longer requiring links to recipes so that I'd have something to share. Dealing with the abundance of produce from our CSA this summer is further skewing my thinking away from ideas that might have broader appeal, and I'm posting this week's plans just to illustrate these points.

For tonight, the thinking is that we want something big to also serve as an easy midweek reheat, so with local Munson's corn now available and fresh wild salmon fillets $9.99 a pound at Sprouts through Wednesday, I went in search of a chowder that combines corn and salmon, so this one actually does have a link, I settled on the salmon and corn chowder that's posted on Epicurious, although it will need a little lightening, as I wouldn't put a whole cup of cream in anything. I think maybe half that much, and using half and half instead, will give it plenty of creaminess.

The gigantic bag of green beans from our Red Wagon Organic Farm CSA this week once again has me thinking of the ground beef and green beans recipe from my beloved old copy of Jane Brody's Good Food Cook Book, and the very lean 93% ground sirloin Sprouts has for $3.99 a pound this week falls right into that plan. I'll work from the cookbook, but Allrecipes has posted a somewhat similar recipe here.

Tuesday will be our easy reheat, tonight's chowder, with a big salad on the side. Sprouts has organic on the vine tomatoes for $1.98 a pound to go into the salad. Also organic celery at 98 cents a bunch, and I need that for the chowder anyway.

With all chicken sausage $3.99 a pound at Sprouts, that originally had me thinking of a simple pasta dish involving sausage, onion, peppers and good quality jarred pasta sauce for Wednesday. But we always have salad on the side with a pasta dish like that, and with a refrigerator full of Red Wagon non-salad veggies, the sausage pasta idea morphed into a southern New England classic of sausage, onion and pepper grinders, using one of the fine baguettes from Whole Foods (their organic "Everything" baguette is $2 through the 29th, and that would make for quite a taste explosion). Somehow I can't serve kohlrabi or beets on the side with pasta, but with what's essentially a sandwich, that seems okay.

With a beautiful bunch of collard greens from the CSA also still in the fridge, that was my starting point for Thursday. The aforementioned Jane Brody cookbook has a simple recipe for sauteing chopped greens with a bit of garlic or whatever, and mixing in canned cannellini beans to make it both your veggie and starch in one pot. Don't know if they are still doing it, but I recently found an unadvertised special on Eden Organic's cannellinis (plus the rest of their beans) at the Pearl Street Whole Foods at three for $5, incredible since they usually run closer to $3 each. For a protein to go with it, I can grab some of the chicken breasts on sale at the Longmont Lucky's for just $1.97 a pound through Wednesday. The Boulder Lucky's is offering ones with their "Never Ever" standards for a higher sale price, and Sprouts also has value packs of boneless skinless chicken breasts for $2.99 a pound through Wednesday.

Which gets us through a week that uses up almost everything from the CSA except the grilling onions, but I can pretty easily find a way to incorporate those. Uh oh, also whichever remains, kohlrabi or beets. Enjoy a week finally in the 80s and maybe even just the 70s for the latter half, with a good chance of rain every day!

Weeknight Dinner Ideas

Actually starting with tonight, since I never got around to that post. This relentless heat is driving me towards picnic-type food, so that's what will be on deck. Rather than heating the house with cooking this evening, I've already cooked some salmon burgers I picked up for an extraordinary $1.99 each at the Longmont Lucky's (last time they did that sale it was the same at the Boulder store, but no time to check now), and we'll have them either chilled or room temperature with a squeeze of lemon tonight. Using the last of my beautiful beets from Red Wagon Organic Farm, I've also made the simple and very fresh beet salad from Mark Bittman's 100 20-Minute Dishes for Inspired Picnics from the New York Times. It's actually the very first idea in his list. A cool dinner for a hot evening.

With fresh wild salmon fillets just $9.99 a pound at Sprouts through Wednesday, there's no reason to reserve that for a weekend dinner, so it's the plan for tomorrow. I was originally going to do it indoors on the grill pan, but as the heat will continue through tomorrow, we might just have to send the family griller outside instead.

With the heat, I wasn't in a mood to concoct a big chowder or heaven forbid a hot casserole this weekend, so instead of a reheat, our super easy dinner for Tuesday will be a real cheat, since I just picked up a bucket of cooked chicken for $6.99 at Whole Foods on today, the last day of their weekend sale. At least I somehow managed to resist their buttermilk-brined fried version, opting for the slightly more virtuous straight bbq style instead.

We'll want some sort of pasta by Wednesday, and the temperatures should have cooled back to the 80s to accommodate it. It should also be something vegetarian following our chicken bucket binge, but I'm afraid I haven't quite figured out what it will be yet. Ditto for Thursday on the planning, but more salmon burgers from Lucky's sale through Wednesday remain a possibility. I like them even better than the ones Whole Foods does, and Lucky's sale price is half the price Whole Foods charges, even when on sale.

Planning Generally In Chaos

The genesis of this blog was friends asking me to share my weekly lists of dinner plans, which are mostly inspired by what's seasonal and also what's on sale at Boulder's natural grocery stores (with the two generally overlapping). However since I started the blog, the feedback I'm getting from a larger audience (thank you!) is that the sale information is of more interest than, ahem, what we're having for dinner. I'm trying to keep up on the sales front, but you may have noticed have been slipping back a bit on the dinner plan lists. This is partly because as I predicted, getting into a CSA this year, as much as I'm totally enjoying it, is wreaking havoc with my planning process. Where I used to have a list with seven straight lines and a clear idea for each day's dinner, my list now looks like something coming out of an asylum, with arrows redirecting mains and veggies everywhere. This is probably a good thing for my too structured brain, but apologies if you actually liked the dinner plan lists. Happy July!

Weekend Dinner Plans

Exceptionally quick rundown. For today, we'll rely on today's one-day sale at Whole Foods, where meat and seafood kabobs are $6.99 a pound. I'll opt for the seafood, and send the family griller out to the grill to do them.

For the rest of the weekend, we'll turn to extraordinary specials at the Lucky's Market in Longmont, with apologies for having no time to check the Boulder Lucky's specials (they do diverge). Since this week the Longmont store is offering boneless New York strip steaks for $5.99 a pound, who could resist unless come to think about it, you are someone like me trying to keep the red meat to a minimum. But with a gorgeous weekend ahead of us, it's just not going to be time for a tofu stir-fry.

Lucky's in Longmont also inspires Sunday's thinking. They have sweet corn at a fabulous eight ears for $1, which makes me think I should use up the last of my stock of frozen roasted green chiles from last fall's roasting season for corn and green chile chowder from the Food Network. The Longmont Lucky's also has organic red or green leaf lettuce for just 98 cents a head, and the red one I picked up there yesterday is handsome. Many apologies for not having time to check the Boulder Lucky's specials, but you can easily find them on the web.

Weekend Dinner Ideas

If perhaps still ill-formed. For tonight, we'll turn to the prepared crab cakes Lucky's Market in Longmont has for $2.99 each. Sorry no time to check the Boulder store, but sometimes they match, and if you're motivated, all sale flyers are on the web. My crab cakes can go on a lightly dressed bed of arugula from my second CSA pickup from Red Wagon Organic Farm.

Tomorrow's the one that's still in formation, as I search for a good use for the collard greens in my CSA this week. Black-eyed pea soup with ham and greens from the New York Times would be a classic use, but I make that so often on New Year's Day, I'm still on the lookout for a better idea.

We'll turn to the grill for Sunday on Father's Day. I'd originally thought it would be with the king salmon from Whole Foods' weekend sale, but after learning yesterday that it would be previously frozen, we'll stick with some fresh Copper River ($14.99 a pound at Sprouts and same at Safeway, $19.99 at Whole Foods yesterday). With sorrel again from my CSA pickup, I could do another salmon with sorrel sauce like two weeks ago, but that sauce is so rich, I think once is enough for the season. Sorrel will find many other uses, and it's great in salads.

Enjoy what looks to be a pretty pleasant weekend, including today's very warm Friday the 13th!

Weekend Dinner Ideas

Simplistic but surely satisfying, so here's a sketch. Tonight will be those house-made salmon burgers that are on sale at Lucky's Markets in both Boulder and Longmont for an astonishing $1.99 each through Wednesday. With big chunks of salmon in them, I'd bet they'd break apart if placed on a grill, so doing them indoors tonight is also a good thing, given the black clouds that are starting to loom over Boulder. They do especially nicely on a bed of greens dressed with lemon and a touch of olive oil (I've found the Tuscan blend from Alfalfa's is particularly good for this sort of thing).

Tomorrow will be an indulgence in the bone-in ribeye steaks the Longmont Lucky's has for $5.98 a pound (they don't appear in the Boulder flyer). With this series of dark afternoons and the storms we've mostly avoided compared to Denver, hopefully tomorrow will be a decent grilling evening. If not, the steaks are cheap enough that it's no big deal if they wind up on the grill pan indoors, or in the broiler.

On Sunday, we'll need something to compensate for tomorrow's beef-fest. With arugula so seasonal and organic on-the-vine tomatoes $1.50 a pound at Sprouts, that's leading me to a vegetarian pasta dish, penne with arugula and tomatoes from Bon Appetit. After the steaks, think I'll up the veggie content by adding organic spinach as well, always a good deal at Lucky's and always available at Whole Foods for a couple of dollars more per pound, plus there's the likelihood of the Farmers' Market for both spinach and arugula.

Which gets us through a simple weekend.

More Dinner Ideas

Starting with tonight, since I never did get that figured out on Friday. We still need something big this weekend to also serve as an easy midweek reheat, and since I need to quickly find a use for the kale from my Red Wagon CSA pickup, we'll do one last round of New England seafood chowder from Bon Appetit before summer hits. (Happy first day of June today!) Sprouts has Alaskan cod fillets for $7.99 a pound and sea scallops at $8.99 a pound through Wednesday. Another advantage of this idea is that I can do a huge salad on the side using the gorgeous baby lettuce mix from Red Wagon.

With the bok choy from Red Wagon still needing an idea and fresh Copper River salmon just $12.99 a pound, for tomorrow I'm thinking of experimenting with salmon bulgogi with bok choy and mushrooms from Bon Appetit. It's a spin on a Korean dish usually done with beef that I tried at Boulder's Korea House. I normally wouldn't mess with Copper River with anything more than a squeeze of lemon, but at Safeway's price, why not.

Tuesday we can reheat tonight's chowder, with the last of the Red Wagon lettuce if we don't finish it all tonight.

We'll want something vegetarian by Wednesday, and pasta hasn't yet made an appearance this week. With this year's basil currently growing and a fairly good stock of pesto still in the freezer from last fall, a simple pasta with pesto sounds like the ticket. Alternatively, since Wednesday is the last day of this week's sale on $1.88 a pound boneless skinless chicken breasts at the Lucky's Market in Longmont (think they're $5.99 at the Boulder Lucky's, and $2.99 at Sprouts through Wednesday), we could do sauteed or grilled chicken breasts slathered with pesto for a non-vegetarian option.

Thursday is still up in the air, possibly boneless pork loin chops, $2.98 a pound at the Longmont Lucky's through Wednesday.

Enjoy a beautiful morning in Boulder!

First Weekend Dinners With The CSA

So I picked up my first CSA veggies from Red Wagon Organic Farm yesterday, and are they ever spectacular. I assumed one large grocery bag would be enough to hold them, but so glad I brought two of the large Natural Grocer size, as my delivery filled both. This week's offerings were much as outlined in my earlier post, but with a couple of surprises to spice it up; instead of a choice of lettuce or arugula (I was planning for the arugula), that one was limited to a beautiful big bag of spring lettuces, while there turned out to be a choice on the kale, as Tuscan was introduced as an option (I stuck with the original Russian red kale).

Now what to do with all those glorious veggies. This post will necessarily be quick, both because of lack of time and especially from the new world of not knowing yet just how I'll handle these veggies. General outline goes like this. For tonight, I'm thinking my idea of salmon with sorrel sauce will hold, as I got to the CSA drop off early enough to catch the sorrel option, and I hope I'll be able to get Copper River salmon later today at Safeway for just $12.99 a pound. The salmon should go on the grill, but if we get dark skies and winds like yesterday, the fish could just go on the grill pan indoors at that Safeway lure-in price. Wouldn't do that with Copper River from Whole Foods if that's still selling at $24.99 a pound. Sorrel sauce recipes seem relentlessly rich with cream and/or butter, which is probably why salmon with sorrel is always so darned good in France. I'm looking at the sorrel sauce recipe from Saveur as my likely go-to, knowing the only way I might lighten it without destroying it would be to use half and half instead of full cream. To compensate, we can have lots of Red Wagon veggies, including fresh thinly sliced raw turnips with hummus to start, and I need to decide whether the side veggie will be the Russian red kale or more likely the lovely turnip greens sauteed in olive oil with a bit of red pepper.

Okay, just writing that took basically all the time I have, so an abbreviation here. I'm thinking grill again for tomorrow, and the Longmont Lucky's Market has an excellent "flattened" marinated chicken for $2.99 a pound this week (so sorry no time to check their Boulder price). We last had that when the Longmont Lucky's first opened and it was excellent, and cleaving a chicken in half like that for the grill is in my mind better left to experts with better knife skills than ours. More of those fresh thinly sliced turnips with hummus will start, and the "grilling onions" from Red Wagon that look like humongous scallions will also go on the grill.

Sunday? I just don't know and haven't had time. The cod and sea scallop specials at Sprouts remind me of a chowder I've already made recently, so I need a bit of time to think out the options. Wish me luck with working with the remainder of this week's Red Wagon CSA bounty. New world here.

Weekend Dinner Ideas

Happy Memorial Day weekend eve, and what a weekend it is to try to plan. Grilling obviously has to be a feature, but with the threat of afternoon storms we've been having, it would also help to be flexible enough to move indoors if needed. Since the severity of the threat seems to be decreasing, we'll start with an indoor plan for tonight, saving the first grilling for tomorrow. Having recently done a trip where I developed an appreciation for fresh fish very simply prepared, usually with some version of potato on the side, tonight will be a simple saute of either fresh Alaskan cod or fresh albacore tuna steak, which are both only $7.99 a pound at Lucky's Market in both Boulder and Longmont. Buttermilk mashed potatoes make a nice comfort side.

We'll hope to get out on the grill for tomorrow, turning again to the fish specials at Lucky's, since they are advertising first of the season fresh wild king salmon for just $14.99 a pound at the Longmont store, $15.99 a pound at the Boulder one. With a price that good this early in the season, I'm afraid availability may be a problem, but that would be easily solved by doing cod tonight and the albacore tuna on the grill tomorrow if so. A caprese salad also comes to mind for a side, given Whole Foods' excellent weekend sale on fresh mozzarella, and the Longmont Lucky's has organic romas for just 98 cents a pound.

I won't admit to Sunday's plan, as it's something we've already done twice since fresh corn first appeared a few weeks ago, but I want it so I'm going to do it. It will also help work on my remaining stock of frozen roasted chiles from last year's season before it's time for this year's.

Back to the grill for Memorial Day on Monday, of course. With boneless skinless chicken breasts an extraordinary $1.88 a pound at the Longmont Lucky's (they're on sale for $5.99 a pound at the Boulder store, to show you how good that Longmont price is), I'm thinking of grilled chicken and ratatouille from Bon Appetit. This is also something that can be made in quantity for convenient leftovers

Which will get us through what will hopefully be a pleasant Memorial weekend. At least my basil's going to get planted!

Weekday Dinner Ideas

Yet again, sort of. Good cold, rainy, and already a little snowy morning Boulder. I hope anything you've planted so far this spring is of the type that can take the heavy, wet snow that's expected through tomorrow morning. My fear is for the trees, with most of their leaves already out. At least if the tree carnage proves to be too much to haul away, our neighbor has already offered to host a bonfire.

As for dinners, making a major assumption the power stays on, I thought I had everything planned out for a delicious pasta dish for tomorrow, strisce alla chiantigiana from Bon Appetit. When a recipe calls for anything more than a splash of cooking wine, my feeling is that it should come from a bottle that you'd also be willing to drink, albeit a pretty inexpensive one since complexity would be a waste. With coq au vin on the menu last night, I thought I had it all figured out to split a decent cooking wine between the two recipes. However, when husband was directed to pick up a bottle of wine for cooking, what came into the house was far more appropriate for drinking, so after the allotted amount was measured into the coq last night, the remainder went into glasses, leaving me with the question of whether to trundle back out in the rain/snow to get another bottle of a cheap cooking type. Basic spaghetti with sausage and peppers is a backup plan.

Tuesday will be our reheat of something big made over the weekend, and this week we'll have our choice of two options, either last night's quick coq au vin from Bon Appetit, or tonight's kale and white bean stew from Food and Wine magazine. Given the weather, I'm so glad I opted to go with wintery comfort foods right now, although our side salads have lots of spring greens and pea shoots from yesterday's Farmers' Market.

In the sales running through Wednesday, high end burger seems to be prominent, with grass-fed organic ground beef $4.99 a pound at Sprouts and Teton Waters Ranch grass-fed ground chuck also $4.99 a pound at the Lucky's Market in Longmont (sorry, no time to check the Boulder Lucky's). Since the Longmont Lucky's is also advertising organic green beans at $1.98 a pound, that got me thinking of a recipe that doesn't have a link, burger and green beans from Jane Brody's Good Food Cookbook. Here's what I've said about it previously: ...we'll do a standby from a classic cookbook, Jane Brody's Good Food Book. Simply called ground beef and green beans, it's basically a stir fry of burger and green beans with some garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes, sauced with a bit of soy sauce, broth, and cornstarch, the whole thing served over rice.   

And for Thursday? I just don't know yet! Maybe simple sauteed chicken breasts from the Longmont Lucky's $1.98 a pound sale through Wednesday, or the usual fallback, salmon burgers from Whole Foods. We just need to get through the rest of this weekend first.

Weekend Dinner Ideas

Funny how the week's dinner plans are sometimes determined. Tonight's are born of frustration. Early this week, I'd wanted some of that very reasonable Canadian swordfish the Whole Foods on Pearl always has in its fish freezer case for about $10.99 a pound for an easy midweek dinner, only to find they were down to one little half pound package. Fish guy checked a list and told me they'd have it back in stock by Thursday. I therefore went yesterday with the idea of it defrosting for tonight's dinner, only to find yet again it is still out of stock. Fortunately just yesterday morning I'd read in the current Cooking Light about an intriguing method for broiling fish in a good old fish shack style without drying it out (my broiling skills definitely could use improvement), which they call their cooking class for moist, flavorful broiled fish. Without my reasonably priced swordfish option, I grabbed more of the fresh Icelandic cod we'd had a week ago, which is still $12.99 a pound, and that will be our broiling experiment for tonight.

The rest of the weekend is also coming from unusual inspirations. I should be looking toward using the freshest of spring greens from tomorrow's Farmers' Market, but yesterday's cold, dreary, sometimes drizzly weather in Boulder as I was considering dinners got me thinking more along the lines of one last round of winter comfort foods instead. With antibiotic-free boneless skinless chicken breasts $1.98 a pound at the Longmont Lucky's Market this week (sorry, no time to check the Boulder Lucky's), that got me wanting to make quick coq au vin from Bon Appetit.

With Sunday I'm also looking toward comfort food prompted by our one day of cold weather yesterday (and the forecast for Sunday looks like more of the same). I'm leaning towards kale and white bean stew from Food and Wine magazine, thinking about the organic kale for 98 cents a bunch at Sprouts and really wanting to get back on a healthy track after some recent indulgence in very rich dairy products for several days. But that stew is still currently competing in my mind with the possibly equally virtuous spicy tilapia and fennel stew from Cooking Light, but that one just seems too easy for a weekend night.

Weekend Dinner Ideas, Sort Of

With my fridge brimming with fresh produce from yesterday's Red Wagon Organic Farm CSA open house (see the post just below), this is my first and possibly last post about how I plan to work with all these veggies. The conflict between my tendency to plan ahead and the need to go with the flow of veggies that arrive will probably be much too embarrassing to share in public. But at least for this weekend, here goes.

I actually found no conflict whatsoever for tonight's dinner. I recently had the chance to gorge on the freshest fish, richest dairy, and organic veggies imaginable, and bringing those trends into home cooking works for tonight. The fresh Icelandic cod on sale at Whole Foods for $12.99 a pound had already caught my eye, and since I'm now into the simplest preparations to not mess with the fish, it will be a simple saute of that. Organic Yukon potatoes will get mashed for a side, although back to one percent milk and Earth Balance for mashing instead of the rich butter and/or cream I indulged in for a few days. As for the abundance of veggies from Red Wagon, the fish can go on a lightly dressed bed of arugula, while most of that gorgeous spinach can get sauteed with a couple of Egyptian walking onions and a bit of crushed pepper for the side.

Tomorrow's a different story. With a nice top round steak on sale at Whole Foods for $4.49 a pound, I'd been thinking about an Asian dinner involving two recipes I've mentioned a year or so ago, a soy and ginger beef for the grill, and soba noodles with pea shoots to incorporate our short pea shoot season. But pea shoots weren't among the items we could get at Red Wagon yesterday (first experience of planning ahead for something that won't be part of the CSA delivery, plus we novices were way too clumsy to have been allowed anywhere near those pea shoots!). I could go to the Farmers' Market for them tomorrow, but with a fridge full of beautiful veggies already, that doesn't sound like the best use of time. Being already in a beef frame of mind despite resolutions to get back on a holy cholesterol track, and discovering that the Lucky's Market in Longmont has boneless ribeyes for $7.99 a pound this week, we're diverting to a plain old grilling event for tomorrow. The new crop of sweet corn arriving from out of state (five for $1 for white corn at Sprouts, four for $1 for bi-color corn at the Lucky's in Longmont today, even though their ad says it's two for $1) will go on the side.

Those corn specials will drive Sunday's thinking, and even though I did it just a few weeks ago when fresh corn first appeared this year, we're ready for another round of corn and green chile chowder from the Food Network. The side salad will be a great place to use up any remaining arugula, spinach, and radishes from the Red Wagon bonanza.

Temps heading into the 80s this weekend!