Saucy Dressings aims to complete this post – four weeks’ menus and recipes, plus a few spare by the end of 2024. Every year an additional week’s menu, with the links to the individual recipes, is added.

For music to listen to while cooking in August, follow this link.

For food in season in August, follow this link.

You might also be interested in these posts:

• Indian-accented corn on the cob
• Hot and cold passionate salad of cucumbers, artichokes and asparagus

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Week’s menu for August: number 1

An August Midnight

A shaded lamp and a waving blind
And the beat of a clock from a distant floor
On this scene enter – winged, horned, and spined –
A longlegs, a moth, and a Dumbledore;
While ‘mid my page there idly stands
A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands

Thus meet we five, in this still place,
At this point of time, at this point in space
– My guests parade my new-penned ink,
Or bang as the lamp-glass, whirl, and sink.
“God’s humblest, they!” I muse. Yet why?
They know Earth-secrets that know not I

Thomas Hardy

… and you could munch a few flapjacks whilst burning the midnight oil. Here are some other recipes for August also.

Saturday lunch:

• jacket potatoes – and what jacket potatoes! With a multitude of toppings or with ham and coleslaw. Whatever permutation and combination you choose
• White peach chutney

OR

• Šaltibarščiai – a Lithuanian cold soup with a shocking, smack-you-in-the-face pink hue

AND

• fabulous flapjacks

OR

• British-Canadian pecan and maple cookie-biscuits

Sunday evening pasta:

• escalope of veal with tagliatelle and chard

OR

• meatballs with fennel and small pasta in a tomato sauce

Monday evening chicken:

• hot and peachy chicken
• super-zingy green salad

OR

• ludicrously simple pink vermouth chicken
• red lettuce salty salad with shallots
• earthy, rich, poetical fried potatoes

Tuesday evening:

• leftovers or night out!

Wednesday evening meat:

• Greek beef pie with skordalia and crispy courgettes

Thursday evening dinner party:

• Starter:     cucumber and prawn mousse

OR

• Starter: blueberries, goat cheese, and walnut salad

• Main course:   butterflied lamb with panzanella and grilled vegetables with a hollandaise sauce
• Pudding:       fruit brulée

OR

• Pudding: tangy raspberry French pud

Thank God it’s Friday drink:

• The Bellini

WITH

• A peachy little dish of feta, thyme and bitter honey

Friday evening fish or seafood:

• sea bream en papillote – serve with wild rice and a green salad

OR

• joyful, flavourful prawns with rosy feta rice

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Week’s menu for August: number 2

August is the month for the sea. It evokes images of treasure hunters, smugglers and pirates….buckets and spades and ice creams. And there’s a delicious fresh minty crème de menthe ice cream among the recipes for this month.

I’m staying at The Pig on the Beach, so lots of ideas from there (how to make The Pig’s dirty martini; and an interview with Lora Strizic, the energy behind setting up The Pig on the Beach and now the manager there). And there’ll be a post about one of their suppliers, The Dorset Charcuterie Company.

Saturday lunch:

• imperial purple, gold-dusted cauliflower with British charcuterie

OR

• Surprising summer salad of avocado and artichoke hearts

OR

• Making a lunch (a hearty one) out of English pesto, tomatoes, and warm bread

FOLLOWED BY

• Rock and Gem chocolate muffins

Sunday supper:

• Ferragosto no-bechamel lasagne

Monday evening meat:

• gammon with saucy peach nearly-chutney

OR

• if you have lamb left over from your butterflied lamb of the previous week, lamb with roast sweet potato and pesto served on a bed of salad leaves

Tuesday evening:

• leftovers or night out!

Wednesday evening chicken:

• quick as you can chicken with sundried tomato

OR

• Gervase Markham’s Elizabethan prune stuffed roast chicken

WITH

• sweet and bitter roast vegetables

Thursday evening dinner party:

• starter: smoked eel
• main course:  chicken with pistachios, mixed berries and a Cuban tomato mojo
• pudding: crème de menthe ice cream – which intriguingly splits into impressive layers

OR

• pudding: magic berries torte with pistachio and a touch of rosewater

Thank God It’s Friday drink:

• The Pig on the Beach Smoky Dirty Martini

WITH

• almost instant artichoke dip

Friday evening fish:

•  Egyptian couscous with garlic shrimp

OR

• Sea bass on a bean bed with exotic za’atar aubergines

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Week’s menu for August: number 3

Saturday lunch:

• Ipanema inspired prawns

OR

• A summery Sardinian salad of chicken, courgettes and burrata

OR

• An open sandwich of hot smoked salmon on cool, creamy cheese

AND

• Tollbooth cookies

Sunday evening supper

• Chicken and mustard sandwich

Monday evening meat

• Barbara’s steak with blue cheese

Tuesday evening

• leftovers or night out!

Wednesday evening poultry

• Galeto Sats cachaça-soaked chicken
• peach, sheeps’ cheese and basil salad

OR

• exotic and easy Za’atar chicken
• parsley, fennel and feta salad

Thursday evening dinner party

• With drinks: cucamelon canapé
• Starter: Colman’s crab gratin with whisky
• Main: veal and celery alla romana
• Vegetables: couscous or tabbouleh
• Pudding: grilled and filled nectarines

OR

• Lychee and raspberry tipsy trifle pierced with homemade Caramac shards

Thank God It’s Friday Drink:

• Sex on the Beach
• Hot and cold cucumber salad

Friday evening fish:

• salmon with rhubarb sauce, fried new potatoes anointed with tarragon-gin mayonnaise

OR

• swordfish with a lightly curried mayo sauce

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Week’s menu for August: number 4

“I rushed to the potager – you know my weakness – and walked up and down between spinach and dahlias in ecstasy….I feel as if alone in the world…. But then comes the enormous satisfaction of always finding a man dressing a hedge or a woman in a gingham and black bonnet on her knees picking up weeds”

Harriet, Countess Granville (born 1785), Letters

Saturday lunch:

• Esme’s favourite –  tuna and beans, aka tonno e fagioli 

OR

• A slightly Japanese salad of steak leaves

OR

• Salad of prawn, bean, avocado and mint

FOLLOWED BY

• Shrewsbury biscuits

Sunday supper:

• Crab pasta, because life’s too f…ing short – inspired by Janet Street-Porter

OR

• Fettucine with gorgonzola and walnuts

Monday evening meat:

• Barnsley lamb chops with green nettle sauce, stuffed mushrooms and potatoes boulangère

Tuesday evening:

• leftovers or night out!

Wednesday evening poultry:

• Glorious Twelfth grouse stuffed with raspberries

Thursday evening dinner party:

• with drinks: convenient onion dip
• starter: ferry smoked swordfish (or eel) on a bed of green and gold
• main course: North African herb encrusted lamb meatballs with fresh mint couscous and yoghurt and tahini sauce
• pudding:   Giorgio Alessio’s peach (or rather nectarine) and ricotta cheesecake

Thank God It’s Friday drink:

• Tom Collins

….. and to eat with it:

• aubergine dip with sundried tomatoes

OR

• Flat white peach and gorgonzola dolce canapés

Friday evening fish:

• kerala prawns masala and
• paneer with ginger and curry leaves

OR

• Fishmonger’s recipe for grouper

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