Weekly Menu: April 8-14, 2012

Happy Easter everyone!  That’s about all you get from me for this holiday…unless your lucky enough to be joining me for a Gospel Brunch at 1300 Fillmore, that is.  Otherwise, Easter is not a big deal in the Henricksen household.  Maybe when we have kids it will be, but until then we typically just treat ourselves to a nice brunch so it feels a bit like a special day.  For the past few years we’ve been taking a long bike ride on Easter as well.  No Easter ham or fancy lamb dinner…just brunch and a bike.  Sorry to disappoint…but I’d love to hear what you are doing for Easter so when I do start celebrating it a bit more elaborately I have some yummy ideas!

So on Sunday evening we’ll be having a slightly healthier version of the classic comfort food, Chicken Pot Pie.  The season for hearty dishes like this has technically already come to an end, but  I thought I’d try to squeeze in a couple more winter-like dishes in while it’s still a bit cool.  Hence one of our favorite soups on Monday as well…although we’ll likely make it on Sunday and just re-heat on Monday & Wednesday to make it a bit more simple.  It’s been a while since we’ve had a taco night, which used to be one of our all-time favorite meals when we were still novice cooks.  So it has a bit of a sentimental appeal and we still keep it simple.  Ground turkey with a homemade taco seasoning mix on grilled tortillas with spinach, avocado, grilled scallions, shredded cheese, salsa and low-fat Greek yogurt.  Crack open a can of  low-fat refried beans (sorry, I know it’s a bit tacky but I freaking love these!) and you have yourself a delicious, cheap and simple meal.  And leftover refried beans to make Huevos Rancheros on Saturday to boot!

I was catching up on my Bon Appétit magazines this past weekend and came across an article about having a homemade pizza party that inspired me.  So we’ll have a little fun with DIY pizza on Saturday night.  I’m going to try out the no-knead dough in the article that is linked in the menu as well…we still haven’t found a homemade pizza dough recipe that really works for us.  So it’s a bit risky…Saturday could turn out delicious and fun or it may be a huge flop with sub-par pizza crust, again!  Until we master this whole crust thing we won’t be inviting any friends over for a party just yet.  Well, and let’s be honest, we don’t have a whole lot of friends to invite anyway.  Everyone keeps having kids on us!  Oh well.  Christian and I can have quite the fun pizza party ourselves!