Kitchen Comforts

A Weekly Summer Menu

In some houses there is talk of astrological seasons versus meteorological seasons; in our house, there are culinary seasons. When the produce started to look like summer, I polled the children and came up with our menu plan. Since Lent, I've stuck to a menu that is all mapped out for the week and then I repeat it every week. Two dinners a week are meatless--on Wednesday and Friday. And I plan with an eye towards making our five-a-day easily. Frequently, leftovers from the night before become lunch the next day. And almost always, there is fruit for dessert. And every week, we have the same basic grocery list. I can't begin to express how this simple principle of a weekly plan has eased the stress out of my life. I've done "Dinner's in the Freezer," Once a Month Cooking, dinner co-ops, and six week rotations. None of them are the stress-buster simplifying to a weekly plan is. At first, my inner foodie protested. But then, I settled in to cooking seven meals very well and having those meals really reflect the abundance of the season. The weekly plan changes with the seasons, just as we are tiring of the menus. Of course, there are times that we deviate from the plan. But not many. So, without further ado, here's the summer food:

Monday
Grilled herb chicken
corn on the cob
fresh tomato, basil, and mozarella salad
watermelon

Tuesday
Taco salad

Wednesday
Pasta with roasted fresh tomato,basil, and garlic sauce
grilled broccoli
tossed salad with mesclun, gorgonzola, grapes (or raspberries), and toasted slivered almonds

Thursday
Steak and Potato Salad

Friday
Pasta pesto or Pasta with Garlic and Parsley
Stir-fried green beans
tomato, basil and fresh mozarella salad

Saturday
Greek hamburgers
big salad
tomatoes

Be sure to visit Sarah and Plainsong for the Loveliness of Summer Food Fair!

Roasted tomato sauce

Begin with garden-fresh, sun-ripened tomatoes of any and every variety. I usually plant some plum tomatoes for this, but by the end of the summer, I'm throwing all varieties into the pan. Clean the tomatoes and core them and put them in an 11X17 inch pan. Peel an entire BULB of garlic and scatter the cloves throughout the tomatoes. Douse with extra-virgin olive oil. Roast at 450 degrees for about a half an hour, until the whole house smells like summertime and the tomatoes are blistered. Pull the pan from the over and sprinkle with fresh, whole basil leaves. Cover with foil and allow to cool until you can handle it comfortably. Carefully transfer everything (including the juices) to the blender. You'll have to bend in two batches. Whir it all together and pour it over hot pasta. This makes enough for 4 pounds of hearty pasta. I usually cook two pounds to feed my family. So, the other half gets poured into a gallon size zippered freezer bag and then frozen flat on the freezer shelf. In the middle of winter, thaw, heat, pour and remember the summer!

Grilled Herb Chicken

The thyme in my garden is abundant and fragrant and begging to be picked. I have two varieties growing there and I'm delighting in using it in my kitchen. Our favorite use for thyme right now is Grilled Herb Chicken. This is a variation on a recipe my friend Barbara shared with me. First, I pick some thyme from the garden,a couple of hands full will do. And I grab some basil, too. I clean the herbs and put them in the food processor bowl. Add olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and sprinkle of cayenne pepper. Throw in five or six cloves of garlic. Whir it all around until it's well blended. It shouldn't be too pasty--you want it pretty pourable.

I use two whole roasters and clean them. Barbara pulls out the backbone and butterflies hers, but after I discovered that someone had used my poultry shears to prune the roses, I stopped doing that. Now I just leave them whole.Separate the skin from the flesh of the chicken, leaving the skin intact over the whole bird. Liberally rub the oil and herbs over the entire chicken between the skin and the flesh. Then rub more oil and herbs around the outside. Plop the chickens in a heavy roasting pan and grill on low for about 2 1/2 hours or until the pop-up timers pops up or until a meat thermometer in the breast area measure 170-175 degrees. Turn off the grill:-). Let the chicken sit for about fifteen minutes before slicing. It should be tender enough to fall off the bone.