Adulthood is tricky and other obvious things

The sky is blue! 

This may seem like a given to you...but it's not so normal this time of year out here. So, I celebrate. This day last year, Hurricane Sandy whacked into the Northeast, leaving many friends and loved ones in a bad spot. Here in Seattle we got a bit of a gift out of it - my aunt and uncle ended up extending their visit with us as they couldn't get a flight home. Not so fun for them but we loved having them, and that's what I'll choose to focus on - I've spent enough time on various blogs climbing upon my government-response-after-disasters soapbox. And this is a happy place! With food! 

In honor of the region of my roots, this week's menu...well, it has nothing to do with Sandy. Unless you consider some seafood. It does, however, include a recipe from my friend Johnny from New Jersey, so we'll count that. Unfortunately I do not have a new produce adventure to report on: a late night Saturday led to missing the Farmer's Market Sunday, so no new acquisitions. I still have last week's emergency acorn squash, though, so am carrying that through with a promise to do better next week. I'm sticking with the goal of menu planning, though, so here's this week's menu. 

• Monday: pan-seared local salmon & acorn squash. We stocked up on sockeye when it was coming in fresh over the summer, so this is a "reach into the freezer for a fast entree", and the aforementioned semi-new produce. 
• Tuesday: Johnny's slow cooker split pea soup & homemade corn bread. Johnny is a guy with a busy and stressful job, and the recipe he shared seems easy and well-suited for that kind of life. EPF teaches Tuesday nights and I'll be out voluworking (why didn't spellcheck catch what seems like a clearly made up word combining volunteering and working?) all afternoon, so this seems like something that will be just right for a late dinner. The cornbread is something I haven't made in a long time - and never the recipe I'm eyeing - but seemed like it would go well with this. 
• Wednesday: Individual Pot Roasts. Another new recipe, this is a dutch oven thing - love me some one-pot cooking. 
• Thursday: Leftover night! Assuming the weather cooperates we'll be trick or treating with our friends and their sweet little boy, so leftovers will be quick and easy - and we're going to run out of plastic containers if we don't clean out the fridge soon anyway.
• Friday: Baked Eggplant Parmesan. I'm trying a new recipe that calls this "healthy" and "easy". We'll see if it is either. 

And that's the plan! Last week, while a success in terms of planning, was also kind of a tip toe into this plan, with only two nights of real cooking - only one of which was "new". This week is a little more ambitious, although not hugely. Hopefully these will all turns out to be as not-enormously-complicated as I hope. 

Results to follow, friends...

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, 
and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth 
seeking the successive autumns."

-George Eliot