Easy weeknight dinner

Here's my system: I make a big dinner with three dishes on Sunday nights and try to make enough so that each of those 3 dishes can carry over into another weeknight, and on those weeknights, I don't have to make 3 things. Got it? Good. But inevitably I get toward the end of the week and I have no carryover. That's when prepared foods are a boon to the working mother. So here's a meal with two semi-prepared foods that need minimal prep and one dish from scratch. Having just eaten this meal last Wednesday, I can attest to it's being delicious and fairly simple.

We don't eat much red meat, so the availability of packaged chicken sausage with few additives is a good staple. Warm them whole in a non-stick frying pan with a little oil, or cut then into disks and toss in that same pan with some oil so more of their surface will brown.

You can also find relatively good store-made pierogi, some with vegetables in them (!), also with few additives. Thinly slice an onion and brown over high heat in a tablespoon of olive oil. Set the onions aside in a bowl, add a bit more oil to the pan and warm the pierogi. Serve with the onions on top and as an extra treat, a little sour cream on the side.

Then you're free to make this very tasty vegetable dish, which works with either cauliflower or fennel. The recipe below uses fennel-- if you opt for cauliflower, you might want to increase the amounts of nuts, cheese and breadcrumbs, plus the baking time, since cauliflower is bigger than fennel. This "gratin" method of cooking vegetables is good to try with kids. The crunchy, cheesy quality just might resonate.

Fennel Gratin

Serves 4 as side dish

1 large fennel bulb, or 2 medium, cored and diced (see illustration)

3 cloves garlic, minced

5 T. olive oil

1/2 c. toasted walnuts, chopped

2 T. bread crumbs

1 t. thyme leaves

1/2 c. grated parmesan

freshly ground black pepper

Pre heat oven to 400F. Core and dice fennel; chop and reserve fronds on the side.

Heat a frying pan to medium high. Add oil, minced garlic and chopped fennel. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally until vegetables brown slightly. Remove from heat and transfer to a small baking dish.

Stir in chopped walnuts, bread crumbs, thyme, chopped fennel fronds, black pepper and parmesan, reserving a bit of the parmesan to sprinkle on top.

Bake for about 15 minutes and serve.