Two at the Table_Menu_Week of January 11 2015

This week looks to be pretty busy for both of us. We also have lots of leftovers (both cooked food and ingredients) in the freezer. As a result, this week’s menu is going to be a little simpler than usual, but it will still have some fun things on it.

Sunday was Tony’s birthday, so we had dinner out. As we wrote in our New Year’s Indoor Barbecue post, we’re crazy about the Homesick Texan’s Coffee-Chipotle Barbecue Sauce. We still have some sauce left over (miraculously, Tony hasn’t eaten it all yet!), so we thought it would be fun to try it on Monday with our Barbecued Chicken with Short-Cut Collard Greens. Instead of collard greens, though, we’re going to make Spinach Sautéed with Garlic, to use up the spinach we have left over from last week’s Grilled Portobello Spinach Salad from the The Skinnytaste Cookbook, which we had last week on Wednesday night.

On Tuesday night, we’ll both be home on the late side, so we’ll each have to scrounge up dinner on our own from things like Real Simple’s Pan Roasted Steak with Creamed Kale and Lasagna with Meat Sauce.

We saw that we had some leftover hanger steak in the freezer, so on Wednesday we’re going to make Epicurious’ Grilled Skirt Steak with Parsley Oregano Sauce (the recipe works just fine with hanger steak) and a simple arugula salad.

We also saw that we had some left over Garlic-Rosemary Rubbed Pork Loin (a dish of our own invention) in the freezer, so on Thursday we’ll have that with a fun new side, Roasted Asparagus with Crunchy Parmesan Topping, a recipe we spotted in the New York Times a little while ago but haven’t had a chance to try yet.

We’ll have dinner out on Friday, probably at a sushi place we tried for the first time in New Year’s Eve, but on Saturday, we’re pulling out all the stops and making Food 52’s Short Rib Ragu. We’ll serve this over fresh papardelle, which we’ll make by cutting the sheets of fresh pasta we have left over from the lasagna into wide strips.

So, not an overly challenging menu for the weeknights, but a good one with a strong finish, making for another great week at Two at the Table!