menu of the week

Hello friends! I have to say, our weekend was pretty awesome over here- dinner at the Rue (more on that tomorrow), hours of yard work, an eggplant parmesan sandwich, a carnival, bubble lawn mowing, more yard work, and homemade chocolate peanut butter ice cream. A great balance of work and play with ice cream to end it all. How did your weekend go? I desperately need to go grocery shopping, so while I plan and shop for our meals this week, you can check out what we ate last week...

baked pastina casserole - A favorite Giada recipe that combines pasta, chicken, cheese, and gravy - that's pasta sauce for those of you who aren't Rhode Island Italians (or married to one!) - hearty and filling, this meal comes together quickly if you have cooked chicken on hand. This time I used some that was left over from another meal. Also, I never use pastina because I don't like straining those tiny little pasta shapes. Instead I use elbows or something else on the small side.

salmon burgers with yogurt-tartar sauce - This was my first time making salmon burgers and I had high hopes for them to turn out well. Unfortunately, dinner was a comedy of errors that began with me attempting to skin the salmon myself (I was only partially successful) and culminated in the propane tank running out so I had to finish the burgers on the stove. Thus, the salmon was overcooked and a bit on the dry side. Luckily we had the yummy yogurt tartar sauce to fix them up.

white cheddar corn chowder - Summer time calls for chowder, so I made this vegetarian version that we love mostly because of the cheddar cheesy goodness. Too bad I forgot to put the cheddar cheese in. Oops. We added it at the table instead.

pasta with black pepper and parmesan - I think I've written about this dish before, but if I have it's worth repeating - this is a great meal for those nights when you didn't defrost anything and don't have anything in the fridge. You basically boil pasta in chicken broth, reserve some of the broth, and add it back to the pan with the pasta, lots of black pepper, and parmesan. Man, is it peppery! But sooo good.

beans and rice - I've made this before but accidentally used cranberry bean instead of anasazi. No worries, folks, things turned out just fine. Wow, it looks as though I made a lot of mistakes this week! Good thing Matt's not too picky anymore.

image via Whole Living