OK, as inspired by CityMama, I'm putting meal planning Sunday on the blog. We go to the Mountain View Farmer's Market every Sunday, and fill-in from local stores after I make up the week's meal plan. These are the parameters I work with, in the order of importance:

Dinner: at home 6 days a week, with one night either out or at the best restaurant in town.

Lunch: Daughter takes her lunch to school usually 3 times a week, and the other two days she has hot lunch. I also need to have something in mind for myself and the baby that works as a bag lunch since we're most often eating at a park. Leftovers play a starring role in most of our lunches, but no one's complaining (yet)

Breakfast: Eh, the usual rotation of cold cereal, oatmeal, scrambled eggs and toast, swedish pancakes (I have a fabulous blender version that's great for school mornings). I've been enforcing the "one fruit or veg minimum" at breakfast - when we have time spinach with garlic is great piled on toast & topped with scrambled eggs. Usually these days it means banana sliced into the cereal...but this time of year I can hand them strawberries and pretty soon cherries and peaches.

I'm thinking the format for these weekly posts will kind of go through what I think about when I plan out our meals - what's left in the fridge, what I got at farmer's market or in the CSA box (just a fruit one this year, probably starting in a month?) , how much time we have for prep & meals, and then the weekly plan, followed by posts of what we *actually* end up eating. My other contributor (aka my husband) is working on some kind of file system for all the recipes, but for the time being, I'm just going to put them in the relevant posts.

Leftover in the fridge this week:
fresh leaf spinach
broccoli
dandelion greens
thyme
two vinaigrettes - one citrus based, the other mustard & red wine
goat cheese

Got at the market:
3.5 pound salmon roast
Acme levain
Acme herb slab
butter lettuce
cilantro
basil
broccoli rabe
dandelion greens
1/2 flat strawberries
chopped olive spread

Got at TJ's
potatoes
lemons
avocados
apples
bananas
onions
milk
heavy cream
olive oil

Got at Piazza
Niman Ranch beef stew meat
tarragon


This week we have the in-laws visiting, and cooking at my sister-in-laws works best since there're too many people to fit in our small condo.

So, starting with Sunday:

• Butter lettuce wedges with the green goddess dressing from the Chez Panisse Vegetable cookbook
• hamburgers (I grind the meat myself ala Zuni) on toasted Acme herb slab with the usual condiments, onions and organic cheddar from TJ's
• oven-roasted organic russets from TJ's (also ala Zuni)
  
• strawberry shortcake made with organic Seascape strawberries from the farmer's market, organic cream from TJ's, and biscuits from the Chez Panisse Dessert cookbook

So I'm a California girl, what can I say....

Monday:
Uhh, my thoughts refused to gel, and swimming lessons mean I have to have everything ready to be eaten about 10 minutes after we get home, so I bailed and we ate at work.

Tuesday:
Taking dinner to my sister-in-law's again.

• I'm probably going to split the salmon roast and maybe oven-steam it (?) Low temp oven with a pan of water, indescribably moist and delicious and lots of margin for error (hard to overcook). You need nothing with this fish but salt. Otherwise I'll pan-fry it, but the stove I'm working with is really wimpy so I'm a little cautious of this approach.
  
• Lemon risotto with thyme, I have lots of home made chicken stock in the freezer, and I'll finish it with some parm.
  
• Blanched broccoli
  
• sauteed spinach with garlic
  
• A starter using two bunches of asparagus, 3 avocados, maybe some romaine spears and...think,think,think!!

Wednesday:
Another swim lesson, plus this is the day I work at my daughter's school leaving me not so much time for food prep. In my perfect world this would be the soup & sandwich night. But I didn't get any soup made, so I think I'll split the difference between what the grown-ups like and what the kids like

• breakfast for dinner for the kids: eggs, toast, bacon, jam, fruit salad with strawberries, bananas and apples. So there's no veg, oh well, I'll make it up to them later.

• Dandelion salad for the adults: with poached eggs, croutons, bacon lardons and a warm mustard-y vinaigrette. I pretty much follow the recipe from Nancy Silverton's Sandwich cookbook, which also has great sandwich ideas (no, really?!?)

See how it's basically the same ingredients, but made differently - God, I kill myself...

Thursday:
Ballet til 6 pm, so again gotta have it thought out and prepped beforehand. I know the girl will wail a little, but I'm making

• pasta with broccoli rabe sauteed with garlic. Italy via Chez Panisse again, though I made this for years at all the Italian restaurants I worked.
  
• and....? maybe I'll pick up some Niman pork at TJ's, cut each portion into 4 thin slices, pound and pan-saute them.
  

Friday:
6:15 call for the school play, so we'll see. Probably a big ole snack of pbj's, yogurt, whatever's floating around...The olive spread from the farmer's market with goat cheese on toasted Acme is probably what I'll be having...

Saturday:
EVERYTHING in the whole wide world is happening on this day: I'm selling at the PAMP sale, my daughter's going to a mid-afternoon birthday party then performing in the school play again, and her other grandmother is in town....I'm going to let the other grown-ups take care of food this day. Only thing I know for sure is we're having ice cream at Rick's after the play.

I know I didn't cover lunch, but this post seems really long already so I'm going to wind it up, and I'll cover my deep thoughts on lunch later.