Menu for the Week: Two at the Table Menu Week of February 22 2015

We continue this week with our mostly meatless menus, with recipes from favorites old and new, from Ina Garten to Smitten Kitchen to Food 52.

A few months ago, we made Rachel Khoo’s Boeuf Bourguignon and absolutely loved it. We found a great vegetarian spin on this classic French dish in the Smitten Kitchen’s Mushroom Bourguignon. We love mushrooms and have made so many tasty things from the Smitten Kitchen cookbook that we know this one is going to be spectacular. We also know that our friends at Wines by the Flask will pair this up with something great!

Kim will be at a meeting of the New York Junior League Monday night, so Tony will be on his own. Since work has been a little crazier than usual for Tony the past few weeks, he thought it would be nice to take a night off and order something pre-made. We know – Two at the Table? Eating something pre-made? Sacrilege! – but even we can’t always find the time or energy to  cook!

We’ll bounce back in style on Tuesday with both a main course and a side. Kim was in the mood for swordfish, so we’ll be making Food & Wine’s Grilled Swordfish with Cilantro-Chile Vinaigrette. We wanted a fun side to go with the fish, so Kim found Food 52’s Moroccan Vegetable Cous Cous. Despite the fact that the cous cous contains chick peas, one of the very, very few things Tony won’t eat (seriously, it’s a short list: liver and other, similar bits from inside the animal; whole chick peas (though hummus isn’t an issue); and whole, hard-boiled eggs), we think it’s going to be a big hit.

We were struggling to find a recipe for Wednesday. There’s a good chance we’ll both be home late from work, but also a good chance that we’ll be home at a pretty normal time, so it was hard to find something simple that was also satisfying. In the end, we just decided to order in. (One of the beauties of living in New York City is that that’s always a very viable option!)

Kim will be at her book club on Thursday, so Tony will be on his own and will have some of the Winter Vegetable Chili left over from last week

With a little more time to cook on Friday, we’ll make Ina Garten’s Coquilles St. Jacques. We have some scallops in the freezer, so we wanted to use those, but we mostly picked this recipe because it was so good when we first made it last month. You might remember that the last time we used larger sea scallops, which we had to cut into quarters, and went heavy on the mushrooms. We’ll use smaller bay scallops this time, which will save a little work, but we’re going to go just as heavy on the mushrooms. Tony goofed a bit in making the sauce last time, so he’ll try to fix that error, and we’ll make sure we have plenty of French bread on hand to get all of that delicious sauce.

We won’t be cooking on Saturday night, as we’ll be at the New York Junior League’s Winter Ball, but we’re excited to try all the dishes on this week’s menu!