Weekly Menu for April 23

This will be my last weekly menu post until the fall. We have hit the time of year when dinners with friends and community events are more common than a night at home. It is what we do here and here is a taste of it this week.

Monday - Rosemary Salt Rubbed Pork Chops and roasted potatoes with green salad.

The pork chop recipe is from Amber at Northwest Edible Life. It is good, fast, fresh and it received a thumbs up from the entire crew. I used local pork chops and rosemary from the garden. I had a meeting and dinner was ready to fly before I was out the door.

For my roasted potatoes, I used red potatoes cut them in 1/4s and then gave them a little toss with olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and pepper. A trick I like for roasting veggies: put your baking sheet in the oven while it is warming. After tossing the veggies in a bowl with the EVOO, shake them onto the hot sheet and those bottoms will start roasting up! 25 minutes at 425 and they will be finished just in time to be served up hot with those perfect little chops.

Tuesday - Slow Cooker Spicy Beef Tacos from Give Me Some Oven

Taco Tuesday! Surprise! Or not. We had some friends over for dinner tonight. I was able to send them home with a container of beef, some tortillas and beans and rice. Again, I used local beef and it did not disappoint. Add a little guacamole, sour cream and salsa. Bam. Dinner. My girlfriend brought a yummy chocolate chip coffee cake that was devoured by the whole crew! Thank you!

Wednesday - Roasted Veggie Pasta and a green salad

This is just so easy. Our medley this week consisted of carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini and ...wait for it...asparagus from the garden! This was our first sampling after a three year wait and it was oh, so tender and good! Incredible really. There is no comparison and I might just have to throw this into the tomato category of homegrown goodness. Yes. There it is.

Cut up the veggies into large pieces. Give them a toss with some EVOO. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Throw them on a hot baking sheet for 25 minutes at 425. I add the broccoli in on a separate sheet for the last 10 minutes. They roast up pretty quickly.

Spoon pasta into bowls. Add a layer of veggies. Cover with your favorite red sauce. Sprinkle with a little Parmesan. Done!

We had friends over this night as well. She is the baker friend who makes all things wonderful, so she offered to make a rhubarb and lemon cake for dessert, I was so excited. So delicious and as soon as she posts it, I will share it with you.

Thursday - out to dinner

We took the kids swimming until late and then popped into a favorite local burger spot. I had a "Black and Bleu". It is a grilled chicken breast sandwich with Cajun spices and it is topped with a little bleu cheese. Oh so good and it is served with sweet potato fries. Love it.

Friday - oh, the guilt

I had great intentions of bringing you something extra special. I have several friends who are following a gluten free diet and I wanted to find something fun to offer them as a dinner option. As I was perusing the shelves at the grocery store I came across a packaged gluten free pizza mix from a brand I love. I thought it would be a great hit. I would try it out and keep some in my pantry if all went well. It didn't. I couldn't even get the dough off my hands to do something with it. It so a wet, gloppy mess. I had already prepared all of the toppings and I was frustrated. I yelled out to the Good Apple, who was in the garden, "Grab the kids, we are going out to dinner." I put the toppings in the fridge, threw the gloppity goop in the trash and headed out the door. This was not going to be a week in budget land because wait...

Saturday - Fundraiser dinner for the completion of the local sports fields

Holy cow! The whole island showed up! It was truly amazing. Hundreds of auction items from boats to cakes (and a meet and greet with Steve Miller, who is a local and whose music I LOVE. It was with concert tickets, dinner and lodging...awesome). The dinner was BBQ chicken AND ribs, coleslaw, beans and a roll and it was ALL done to perfection. Messy? Yes. But it was some of the best BBQ I have had (that didn't come off our own grill, of course). I can't even imagine what the headcount was. They had planned for 500 dinners and they had to rally up more food and they did. I am going to guess they served double that without blinking. Did I mention that there was fantiastic live music playing the whole time? Our community really knows how to throw and attend a fundraiser.

A special hats off to the incredibly dedicated group of parents and community members who made this happen. I can't wait to hear how much they raised.

Sunday- Grilled chicken and roasted veggies with a green salad.

Ahhhh. Back home. Back to normal-ish.

I have to head out to the garden, so I will see you on Tuesday.

Do you need some dinner ideas? Check out my other weekly menus or my real food recipes.