Summer

Homemade vinaigrettes are so easy that there is no reason to ever slather your greens in store bought dressings.

After I mix the ingredients together, I like to store mine in a small mason jar, so that I can shake it well before using (in case the oil and vinegar have separated).

The addition of a small amount of mayonnaise helps keep the dressing stabilized. I usually use Champagne vinegar, but a good red wine vinegar or fresh squeezed lemon juice will work as well.

My mother, brother and a couple of friends were coming to dinner Sunday night. I had the main course – some organic St. Louis-cut pork ribs (according to the Whole Food’s butcher these are meatier though less tender than baby-back ribs – and they MUCH cheaper). I had plenty of peppery arugula for a vinegary foil for the sweet and smoky barbecued ribs. What I needed was a side dish salad – something that I could make before my guests arrived. Something starchy, but showcasing summer vegetables. Of course, I really did not want to go to the market. I’ve got a vegetable garden – isn’t that supposed to supply me with veggies?

Well yes, and no. See my day’s harvest? This would be perfect for three or possibly four, but I had seven people coming to dinner. Hence, the Wheatberry Whatever Salad. The salad pictured is farro combined with the beans, squash, tomatoes, basil and garlic chives with olive oil, lemon juice, crushed garlic, salt and pepper too. It was great. It would also be an excellent way to use odds and ends of produce in your refrigerator.

Everyone loves summer squash and zucchini—they're easy to cook, eat, and grow. But when you don't have the space, the farmers' market is a great place to get your favorite vegetables. I know I always leave with at least a bagful of fresh produce. Everyone recognizes long green zucchini or crook-necked yellow squash, but there are so many more shapes and sizes to choose from. And each size or shape lends itself to different ways of cooking, but one of my favorites is stuffing them.

Squash aren't just for sautéing or steaming. These round summer squash, once roasted, are the perfect vehicle for a number of different fillings. Serve these little packages as appetizers at a summer party or for a family dinner. Meat fillings are always popular, like ground beef or pork. But during summer, when you're not in the mood for a heavy meal, a vegetarian option is always a pleasant respite from all the steaks and hamburgers.

Finally, we’re harvesting our potatoes—Red Golds and French Fingerlings, too. Every morning Roy forks up a plant or two and we ooh and ah over the tubers that tumble off the roots. (The potatoes are Roy’s babies, so he gets to decide how many we pull up every day!) There are always a few that are only the size of marbles—I slip them in my pocket and roll them around in my fingers from time to time, as if they were lucky garden charms. The rest I weigh and portion into those cute little green berry baskets for the farm stand. Any extras I get to keep. And cook for dinner. Yum.

The other night I had a few of both kind left over, and they were all different sizes. So I cut them up into pieces about the same size so they’d cook at about the same rate. But instead of roasting them, I decided to cook them on the grill using a method I developed for Fine Cooking years ago.

Basically, it’s just cooking in a foil package (not a radical concept!), but the trick is to make a package of even thickness so that all the potatoes cook at about the same rate (see directions in the recipe below).

The big payoff here is that by putting the foil package over the direct heat of the grill, the potatoes get some great browning (and flavor) and cook through, too. I wrap the potatoes in three layers of foil so that they don’t burn, and I flip the potato package once during cooking so both sides have contact with the hot grill grates.