It’s nice to be heading into a weekend again. I feel like the days are going by so fast as we head into the holiday season. There are a thousand things that I would love to do before the whirlwind festivities are upon us, but I’ll be happy with just finishing Halloween costumes, getting new carpet in our apartment (hooray!!) and making sure there is some food on the table (and hopefully off of the new carpet…) at dinner time. With life as busy as it is, I rely completely on my weekly meal planning to ensure that last one happens.

This last week Dave chose every meal, which was a nice break for me from trying to be creative. We enjoyed some old favorites:

Hard Shelled Beef Tacos: Seriously, when was the last time you had a hard shelled taco at home? We heated the shells in the oven until nicely warmed, then stuffed them with seasoned lean ground beef, mexican shredded cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, guacamole, non-fat plain yogurt (aka sour cream), and salsa.

Butternut Squash Ravioli with brown butter and green salad: Thank you Costco for a last-minute meal that tastes fresh, hearty, and home made (by some awesome Italian woman specializing in ravioli.) I have yet to learn to make pasta myself, so this was a fine and delicious assistant. The quick salad was romaine, roma tomatoes, artichoke hearts, red onion, and cucumber. I’m addicted to cucumber right now.

Grilled Wild Sockeye Salmon with Feta Mashed Potatoes and Roasted Asparagus: The key to good salmon is to add less, and cook less. I love a simple, salt/pepper/butter salmon grilled to medium rare (about 3 minutes on each side). This week I slightly overcooked the filets, but we still ate them:) The mashed potatoes were divine (for the sake of full-disclosure, the feta was left-over from my Greek fries from this awesome dive, so it was all sorts of herbed, oregano+who knows what that makes it delicious.)

White Bean Chicken Chili with Cornbread: I made the chili on the stovetop, added a can of corn, let it simmer for an hour, then added about a cup of non-fat plain yogurt before serving topped with cheese. Yum. And the cornbread was a mix from Trader Joe’s that I grabbed last-second and it was awesome.

Hope you find some inspiration for your own table!

And have a happy weekend!