Sometimes even the most detailed shopping list and most carefully scheduled meal planning doesn't help. This was the case for us this week.

I'd been looking forward all week to trying out a recipe for grilled pesto chicken stuffed with arugula, roasted red peppers and goat cheese, which I'd been planning to serve with fennel also cooked on the grill—a vegetable I rarely eat since I never know quite what to do with it. The chicken recipe was from that grilling cookbook I mentioned recently, and looked somewhat ambitious but amazingly delicious. Plus, it would make use of the last of the chicken from Costco that we had in our freezer.

Or so I thought. After rifling through the freezer several times (It's gotten disorganized once again since I'd vowed to keep it tidy and keep a list of what was inside), I could not find the chicken. Somehow, we must have used up the last of it without realizing it.

At this point, I had a choice. Do I give up and head instead for our binder of take-out menus? Or do I improvise? I'm sick of spending money on take-out when we have a fridge full of groceries. So I checked the freezer again and discovered we had plenty of tilapia.

I defrosted a couple of fillets of those instead, and figured we'd grill them somehow with the pesto and arugula that we'd planned to use in the chicken dish. But as dinnertime approached, the skies turned ominously dark. Time for Plan B...or rather, after the chicken mishap, Plan C. I improvised a recipe of tilapia baked in parchment that made use of the fennel I'd been planning to make, as well as some carrots I had in the fridge that I was meaning to cook for Sadie (Want to try it for yourself? Here's the recipe). The arugula I served as a salad with White Wine Vinegar and Garlic Dressing, and I also served the couscous I'd previously planned, made from a mix (and, I might add, an easy, healthy, five-minute side dish that I often rely on).

Despite the setbacks, my meal took only about 20-30 minutes to prepare and cook and met with plenty of praise at the dinner table.

As for the rest of the ingredients, they didn't go to waste. The arugula, which was actually quite expensive, went into Chip's sandwiches the rest of the week, and I made a quick appetizer for our dinner party guests on Saturday by slicing the goat cheese into coins, drizzling them with olive oil and a sprinkle of flaky sea salt and cracked pepper, and serving it with slices of baguette.

They say necessity is the mother of invention. In the past, I probably would've reached for the take-out menus and let the groceries for a foiled supper rot in the fridge; I'm glad I was able to be inventive.



In My Kitchen
Every week, I tally my grocery bill, and give you a peek at what's on the dinner table at our house.

This week our bill seemed high, but on Saturday night we had friends over for grilled bratwurst.

Groceries: $119.11

Meals Prepared:

• Tomato, mozzarella and basil sandwiches, store-bought noodle salads, lemon bars
• Turkey chili and cornbread
• Tilapia in parchment with fennel and carrots, couscous, arugula salad
• Turkey beer brats and veggie beer brats, corn on the cob, raspberry-rhubarb pie (from Costco!)