There have been two themes running through my dinner menus lately: simple, light entrees that are full of whole grains, and grilled dishes. This menu gets us out at the grill on Monday and Friday. Make sure to pour a glass of your favorite beverage to sip while you grill!

A Savvy Week: Chicken and Millet

Monday: Blackened beef with Thai chile noodles
Tuesday: Spring carrot sauté with olives, garlic and millet, with shrimp
Wednesday: Indian butter chicken with basmati rice
Thursday: Thai eggs with millet and arugula
Friday: Grilled chicken sandwiches with lemon chive aioli with herb-grilled potato wedges

On Monday:

Make the blackened beef with Thai chile noodles. If you have time, let the steak come to room temperature before grilling.

Total prep and cooking time: 50 minutes

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Thai Eggs

If you are a regular reader of Savvy Eats, you know that I love to can and freeze food as a way to extend the seasons. Berries that were the frozen mere hours after being picked at the height of the season make for infinitely better smoothies. Homemade tomato sauce often tastes brighter than store-bought, so I always can or freeze batches when tomatoes are at their peak for winter casseroles and pasta dishes. Plus, it is so easy to freeze some extra beans or waffles for quick dinners down the line.

But this week reminded me of the other reason I preserve food: I immediately have produce and healthy meal options available after a week away. The beginning of the week was incredibly busy, what with Healthy Living Summit registration, freelance and blog catchup, load of laundry and just generally trying to get back into the swing of things.

All that to say, I didn’t actually get to the grocery store until Tuesday night. And it was fine, because we had plenty of preserved food to hold us over. Because we hadn’t gotten milk yet, we ate frozen waffles or oats and frozen berries for breakfast. We defrosted some bread and opened some canned peaches for lunch. For dinner, we broke out some frozen hot Italian sausage, garlic scape pesto, zucchini and tomatoes for a pasta dish (which also gave us leftovers for Tuesday lunch).

I probably could have gone another day or two without getting to the grocery store, a prospect I was strongly tempted by when it came down to having time for either groceries or the gym on Tuesday night, but not both. I couldn’t stop thinking about the Thai eggs with leftover millet from Whole Grains for a New Generation (a fabulous cookbook that I will be reviewing soon), though, so Wegman’s won out in the end. The results were more than worth it.

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