Recipes and Menus for September

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 September, follow this link.
For food in season in September, follow this link.
You might also be interested in these posts:
- Gather ye blackberries while ye may because after Michaelmas ye will have to stop
- How to make damson gin
Week’s menu for September: number 1

“Turning our attention to diet and nutrition, I love a caprese salad and a glass of nutritious rosé on a sunny Tuscan terrace as much as the next person. The fact is, though, we’re here, not there, so let us review our options, which are uniformly thrilling: crumpets, pies, proper rich fruit cake instead of your fancy little foreign tartlets, hot puddings, roast pork with crackling and all the trimmings on a freezing day, red wine — so much less of a hangover than rosé — hearty soups, stews, lasagne, crumble, need I go on? On Sunday afternoons, as the rain pelts against the windows, there is no reason even to contemplate doing anything except lighting the fire and a scented candle, and sitting on the sofa with a hot Ribena and a heavily buttered crumpet. If you don’t think that sounds like the bee’s knees, then I’m afraid you are tired of life and there’s nothing to be done with you.”
Hilary Rose, The Times, October 4 2021
I’m spending a week of this month in Germany, mostly in Hamburg and there are all sorts of wonderful dishes to be tried and tested.
Saturday lunch:
- matjes and potato salad
OR
OR
FOLLOWED BY
OR
Sunday evening pasta or rice:
OR
Monday evening poultry:
OR
Tuesday evening:
- leftovers or night out!
Wednesday evening meat:
- frikadellen – German meatballs with a salad dressed with German yoghurt dressing
OR
- Middle-eastern nearly devils on horseback sausages wrapped in bacon and cooked with juniper and gin with an avocado and baby gem salad dressed with an oily mustardy dressing
Thursday evening dinner party:
- starter: avocado and dill and salmon mousse
OR
- starter: breadcrumb-fried Camembert, or Tunworth with charming pear and apple chutney laced with Stone’s ginger wine or with cranberry sauce
- main course: geschnetzeltes with
- vegetables: rösti
OR
- main course: venison Wellington by Ashleigh Farrand
- pudding: rote grüze on panna cotta
OR
Thank God it’s Friday drink:
- The Cosmopolist – suave and sophisticated. An unforgettable amalgamation of a Cosmopolitan and the indescribable Sex on the Beach with a Dead German Rock Star!
SERVE WITH
Friday evening fish:
- white fillet of sea bass with lobster, cream and brandy sauce, and
- Hamburg manful green beans and bacon
Week’s menu for September: number 2
“Early in the month, summer feels like it’s making its mind up about exactly when to leave and everything on the smallholding seems to sense a change coming. The animals become less active, the trees look less upright and lively, and the chickens lay less frequently. The vigour and chirpiness of spring and summer seem to be becoming loose and tatty, like favourite jeans aging.”
Mark Diacono, A Year at Otter Farm
With September the year shifts into autumn so we see the last of the courgette flowers and corn on the cob and quail come into season.
Saturday lunch:
OR
OR
FOLLOWED BY
Sunday supper:
OR
- whole roasted cauliflower cheese with sausages
Monday evening meat
- breaded veal with stuffed courgette flowers and a green salad
OR
- sausages in a blackberry, port and onion sauce, with mashed potato mixed with leek and apple
Tuesday evening:
- leftovers or night out!
Wednesday evening chicken:
- holy moley! – with guacamole
OR
- Nearly Reese Witherspoon’s Nut-crusted Chicken – with Titanic salad; or lime, coriander and tomato salad; or labneh and roasted tomatoes
Thursday evening dinner party:
- starter: twice baked cheese soufflés
OR
- starter: garlicky mushrooms with Taleggio on puff pastry beds
- main course: quail with fig and grilled aubergines;
OR alternatively,
- chicken with a lemon pickle glaze and a peppery mushroom salad or with mascarpone mushrooms with borlotti beans and truffle oil
- pudding: blackberry mousse
OR
OR
- pudding: 3-ingredient lemon cake
Thank God It’s Friday drink:
Friday evening fish:
OR
WITH
Week’s menu for September: number 3
“Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich.”
Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Saturday lunch:
- haricot, egg, spring onion and tahini salad
- warm fennel, lemon, and pasta salad
OR
OR
OR
FOLLOWED BY
OR
Sunday supper:
OR
Monday evening meat
- mixed grill
WITH
OR
Tuesday evening:
- leftovers or night out!
Wednesday evening chicken:
- Indian chicken breast with a black gold sauce
- orange salad
Thursday evening dinner party:
- with drinks: potato skins stuffed with truffled mascarpone
- starter: baby gem and crab meat
OR
- starter: Hospitality Awards confit of salmon with a citrus salad
- main course: Jardin d’Alice ballotine with new potatoes and cabbage
OR
- main course: duck breasts with rich Marsala and blackberry sauce, roasted baby potatoes and quick spinach
- pudding: self-saucing lemon pudding
Thank God It’s Friday drink:
- angels cry too
- the best garlic bread in the world, the universe, everything
Friday evening fish:
- cod in herbed breadcrumbs
- mozzarella, fennel and orange salad
OR
OR
Week’s menu for September: number 4
Saturday lunch:
- How to cook the best corn on the cob
OR
- Fabulous Flourless Cauliflower Cheese, with chipolatas
OR
FOLLOWED BY
- Lavender, lemon, blackberry pound cake
Sunday supper:
- autumn sausage and apple plait
- creamy, dreamy auberginey
Monday evening meat:
- sunny south of France slow-cooked beef stew, with noodles and an over-dressed green salad
- followed by runny cheese (try a Waterloo) and chocolate mousse.
Tuesday evening:
- leftovers or night out!
Wednesday evening poultry:
Thursday evening dinner party:
- with drinks: Sketch gin and tonic jelly bookended with green olives
- starter: Casa Brindisa artichoke with wild mushrooms and truffle oil
- main course: carbonade de boeuf with green beans; or with griddled baby gem, pistachios and salsa verde
OR
- main course: Claridge’s chicken pie
- pudding: David’s blackberry and almond cake
Thank God It’s Friday drink:
- Moscow mule
….. and to eat with it:
- Russian salad
Friday evening fish:
- Mrs Beeton’s curried cod
- Fennel with orange glazed with honey and sherry