With some careful and cagey planning you can avoid the kitchen quite a lot in the summer. And I don’t mean by taking the slippery slide route and going out to eat all the time. This is a food column, after all, not essays about unbridled imagination and expense accounts. I would like nothing better than to flip through a collection of take out menus from the latest hot-to-trot restaurants in New York City, see something recommended by Grub Street, and dial in an order. Vic’s just got a glowing endorsement: https://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/vics/
No. I am enjoying a super warm staycation this year. I’m not going to New York, sadly, but I bet I can come up with some nice homemade artisanal dinner menus that won’t cause me to dip into my retirement savings, nor will I be tied to the blast furnace that doubles as an oven in our kitchen.
We made homemade pizza last week.If you are familiar with my Instagram account you might have seen the before, the after, and the smoke-filled room photos I posted. I do not understand why the smoke alarms did not go off. I love running through the cautionary tale recipes before I share them here. Consequently I will contradict myself. Go out for pizza. Do not crank the oven to 550° F in the summer. Summer is not defined by homemade pizzas that are never as good as pizzeria-bought. Trust me on that one. (https://www.instagram.com/p/BIdto5LhVsp/?taken-by=jeanbeans)
But with some deelish bread, a fistful of tomatoes, loads of fresh garlic and a couple of pounds of bacon you can have a few swell meals, and still spend some time on the front porch swing counting fireflies. (Or waiting for the Persiad meteorite showers – which should be glorious this weekend!)
Full cooking disclosure: you will have to use toaster, or the broiler, for toasting bread, and a frying pan for the bacon. If you cook small batches of bacon it is easy to use a frying pan, instead of spending all that time washing up that baking the bacon in the oven requires. Remember, you are not lazy, you are extremely efficient. Every couple of days I devise some marvelously logical way to solve a problem, and wonder if Frank and Lillian Gilbreth of Cheaper By the Dozen fame would applaud. Do you want to spend time elbow deep in hot soapy water? Of course you don’t. You want to get back to your Netflix binge-watching. Could you bacon on an as-needed basis. Nothing more, nothing less.
The New York Times has a wonderful recipe for tomato-y, garlicky bacon sandwiches. Piquant. Ambrosial. Homeric. https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017666-tomato-sandwiches?smid=fb-nytdining&smtyp=cur
That Melissa Clark can come swing on my front porch anytime.
We don’t use a recipe for bruschetta anymore. It is one of our favorite dishes to bring to a casual summer party, or for me to throw together before Mr. Friday comes hurtling through the front door of a weeknight. I paw through the bread collection in the freezer, and generally I can find a loaf of French bread that hasn’t been affected by permafrost. I cut the loaf in half, lengthwise, and run it under the broiler for a few minutes, just long enough to develop a nice, crunchy golden surface. After the bread has cooled for a couple of minutes I rub a clove of garlic along the toothy textured surface, and then drizzle the bread with olive oil. In the meantime I have tossed a couple of good tomatoes with half a Vidalia onion, some more olive oil, and a handful of basil leaves into a blender or food processor. I just chunk up the tomatoes – I do not process the mixture into a puree. Texture is good. I spread the tomato mixture over the bread, and top with a handful of crumbly Feta cheese. Then I run the bread under the broiler again, until the feta gets a little melty, and the bread singes a little bit along the edges. Be sure to distribute many napkins, as this is messy to eat. Add liberal amounts of cheap white wine.
Here is a bruschetta recipe for the faint-hearted: https://www.instructables.com/id/Bruschetta-Recipe/
And if it is just too hot to even think about hauling the toaster up onto the kitchen counter, have lunch for dinner; have a great tomato sandwich. I, too, like Hellman’s mayonnaise the best, and appreciate the writer’s admonition about Miracle Whip. We must adhere to some standards. https://www.ibelieveicanfry.com/2013/07/southern-tomato-sandwiches.html
“It’s difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.”
Lewis Grizzard
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