Do you think of Memorial Day Weekend as the unofficial start of summer?  If so, dust off the grill and get out those beach towels because summer is right in front of you!  In this week’s dinner planner, I’ve included some of my favorite early summer recipes.  I am also thinking about switching the Saturday dinner for a lunch idea since I actually don’t cook on Saturday nights unless we have people over.  It’s my one meal off!  But I do make lunch on Saturday and Sunday so I thought I could make a suggestion every week for a lunch idea.  Let me know what you think!

Here’s your dinner/meal planner for this week:

Meatless Monday:  Burrito rice bowls

Tuesday:  Mixed greens with miso-ginger dressing, simple slow roasted salmon, quinoa with toasted coconut and lime

Wednesday:  Fregola with ricotta and peas from Bon Appetit (I’m going to use barley instead)

Thursday: Chicken paillard with kale pesto, steamed artichokes with tomato-basil salad

Friday:  Chopped grilled vegetable salad with shrimp (take a Tablespoon of vinaigrette and brush it on the shrimp and grill them for a couple minutes on each side)

Saturday lunch:  white bean salad with celery, mint and tuna

Sunday:  Slow cooker BBQ sandwiches with cole slaw and baked chipotle sweet potato fries

 

Here’s what you can do ahead if you need to:

Sunday

Soak and make black beans for burrito bowls

Soak and make white beans for salad; freeze and defrost day before

Wash greens for salads

Make all dressings/vinaigrettes

Toast coconut

Make kale pesto

Thursday

Prep (wash, dry, chop) asparagus and zucchini for grilled veg salad

Wash and dry mint

Make dry seasoning for sweet potato fries