“The colour of July is gold. Gold now are the barley fields which cover much of Norfolk. Gold in the sheltered eyes of hares, the clambering harvest mice…gold the corn marigold blooms at the field’s edge, where spared the spray, gold on the back of probing hoverflies.”

Nick Acheson, Summer, ed Melissa Harrison

News upon news…none of it good. I travel throughout Europe and the British are universally viewed with a kind of unbelieving mix of pity and derision, as if we all, collectively, have against all odds achieved some kind of leming-proportions own goal.

If June is a month for smart picnics at races and operas, and August is the month of the seaside, July is a month for seeking solace from the external strife, in gardens; English country ones being still ideal…and if not in the garden, or the potager, then busying oneself in the kitchen, building with all the chopping and slicing a kind of protective canopy against the outside world.

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 food in season in July, follow this link.

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

You might also be interested in these posts:

• 9 things to add to water to give it a more interesting taste
• how to make the best, and easiest lemonade
• Saucy lemonade with hooch
• how to make raspberry vinegar
• grilled and filled nectarines

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Week’s menu for July: number 1

Saturday lunch:

• crab with a Mary Rose sauce

OR

• A Cornucopia of Ancient Grains, Peppers, Sweet Berries, and Everything Else

OR

• fried courgettes, with herbed ricotta and toasted walnuts

FOLLOWED BY

• citrus cake for Jacqui

Sunday evening pasta:

• broad bean and ricotta pasta

AND

• Miss Peggy Lee’s Jade Salad

OR

• fregola, courgette and spicy sausage supper

Monday evening meat:

• Beef with cucumber and
• mixed summery vegetables

Tuesday evening:

• leftovers or night out!

Wednesday evening chicken:

• chicken, raspberry and asparagus salad

OR

• roast chicken joints in the Turkish style

WITH

• rocket salad with olives and walnut dressing

Thursday evening dinner party:

• Starter: smacked mack with naan
• Main course: gammon with gin
• Vegetables:  mashed potatoes, buttered spinach, gooseberry sauce
• Pudding: Eton mess

OR

• Pudding: tarte au citron

OR

• Cheese: Goat cheese (Riblaire St Varent) with redcurrant, peach and sour cherry chutney

Thank God it’s Friday cocktail:

• the classic (or maybe not so classic) gin and tonic

and to nibble with it

• pesto and cheese packets to accompany a drink

Friday evening fish:

• James Bond’s sole meunière
• fennel braised in vermouth with garlicky breadcrumbs

OR

• mackerel and tuna potato pie with easy spinach or easy peas

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Week’s menu for July: number 2

“Summer is the time when one sheds one’s tensions with one’s clothes, and the right kind of day is jewelled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all’s right with the world.”

Ada Louise Huxtable

In July we have the tennis at Wimbledon, and the rowing at Henley. But really it’s a month for lazing around in the garden. Hopefully it will be hot so there will be even less inclination to spend time indoors slaving over a hot stove. And if you think your garden could do with a bit of improvement and you’re in London I highly recommend spending a quiet hour or so at the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace visiting the Painting Paradise: the art of the garden exhibition. This gem of a display, small, perfectly formed, and not heaving with taller-than-you craning others presents examples of representations of gardens in drawings and paintings, and also tapestries, ceramics, jewellery, seed catalogues and much else. There are exquisite Indian miniatures and da Vinci drawings, whisper thin porcelain roses, and sparkling Fabergé flowers and trees. Highly recommended.

All of the recipes for this week in July can be made quickly, and a couple of them come from hot steamy sorts of places (the jambalaya comes from New Orleans) so they’re perfect for warm evenings.

 

Saturday lunch:

• generously overflowing stuffed yellow peppers filled with golden corn

OR

• herby ricotta and rocket roulades

OR

• red leaf and green cucumber salad with a light, summery hummous sauce

FOLLOWED BY

• raspberry revelation

OR

• A puffy, pillowy, chocolatey version of Anzac oatmeal biscuits

Sunday supper:

• Turkish meatballs
• yoghurt slathered aubergine

OR

• Shakshuka – hearty north African breakfast, brunch, lunch… or supper – the everything meal

Monday evening meat:

• sausage jambalaya

OR

• lamb chops with cannellini beans, black olives and artichoke hearts

Tuesday evening:

• leftovers or night out!

Wednesday evening chicken:

•  with Palace St George three Cs salad

OR

• Prince Oblonsky’s tarragon chicken with a soft onion-vermouth sauce
• Bratkartoffeln

Thursday evening dinner party:

• starter: gorgonzola and mushroom millefeuille
• main course:   cod with olives with mustardy new potatoes and Tommy and Tuppence tongue-tingling green beans

OR

• main course: quince-glazed lamb loin fillets with roasted vegetables
• pudding:  pageant summer pudding

OR

• pudding: operatic peach Melba

Thank God It’s Friday drink:

• The Duke of Amalfi

and to nibble with it

• Shu Han Lee-inspired fried cashews with curry leaves

Friday evening fish:

• trout with nasturtium and summery champ

OR

• Comfort food, reheatable, risotto-kedgeree hybrid

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Week’s menu for July: number 3

I’m just back from Rio (no, not the Olympics), so there are quite a few Brazilian-influenced dishes here. The temperatures here are broadly similar to there at the moment – these dishes are very appropriate for hot weather.

Saturday lunch:

• Softly enveloped mozzarella with crunchy herb croûtons

OR

• golden, fragrant salad of cauliflower and turmeric….and, for omnivores, ham

OR

• red leaf and pistachio salad with thick, gooey, gungy, garlic dressing

FOLLOWED BY

• sweet cheese and apple cake

Sunday evening supper:

• fish tagliatelle with coconut cream and black olives

WITH

• avocado, mango and citrus salad

OR

• meatballs with fennel and small pasta in a tomato sauce

Monday evening meat:

• hot steak salad with hot baby gem

Tuesday evening:

• leftovers or night out!

Wednesday evening poultry:

• chicken with maple mustard sauce

OR

• molasses chicken

FOLLOWED BY

• tatsoi salad

Thursday evening dinner party:

• with drinks: brie and hibiscus crostini
• starter: crab toasts
• main: Banana cod with leeks and black pudding
• pudding: Rum and Chocolate Bread and Butter pudding

OR

• pudding: Cherry tart with a surprise ingredient – tahini

Thank God It’s Friday Drink:

• Caipirinha

OR

• sake

WITH

• edamame beans

Friday evening fish:

• Christian Taylor’s wild sea trout with brown shrimp, bright vegetables and a fish cream sauce

OR

• Fish and rocket shooting star salad with pumpernickel and walnut crusted crumbs

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Week’s menu for July: number 4

Saturday lunch:

• Elegant, little-black-dress useful, kitchen garden soup

or

• Courgette carpaccio with gilded cheese and pine nuts and an emerald green dressing

or

• River Café inspired artichoke salad with shards of boiled lemon, prosciutto, and sumac flatbreads

FOLLOWED BY

• Jenny’s peanut butter cookies

Sunday supper:

• small pasta salad

OR

• A Night Kitchen-inspired dish of cauliflower, tahini sauce, boiled eggs and homemade zhug

Monday evening meat:

• pork with plums
• Greco-Italian potatoes with greens

Tuesday evening:

• leftovers or night out!

Wednesday evening poultry:

• duck with cherries and port and potatoes à la Lyonnaise

OR

• slightly more exotic za’atar chicken with cinnamon and orange and with a yoghurt sauce

Thursday evening dinner party:

• with drinks: tortilla Española
• starter: spinach gratin
• main course: creamy chicken and ham and red onion pie
• and cauliflower...“if the cauliflower looks back at you with a vigorous air, buy it; if it looks in need of a good night’s sleep, leave it where it is”  Jane Grigson
• pudding:   Lebanese chocolate and apricot tart

OR

• pudding: Iris’ always-reliable rhubarb crumble

Thank God It’s Friday drink:

• Raspberry gin sour

….. and to eat with it:

• meat treats for carnivores

Friday evening seafood:

• The best way to deal with langoustes
• canellini bean salad with artichoke hearts and vermouth

OR

• shameless tinned tuna with aubergine salad and spankingly fresh flatbread

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In this month of barbecues, listen to Robert Plant’s Carry Fire.