August 24th 2025
Menu
This week’s theme was mediterranean and copied wholesale from Brian Lagerstrom! We grilled chicken and made two salads (one citrus, one pasta)! Amanda described the meal as something she would “eat on vacation”! Highest compliment ✨
Also this week I acquired two new serving vessels: a chips and dip bowl and my new-most-favorite serving dish - the “olive alley”. It is so adorable and impractical for literally any other food product! I am obsessed.
Grilled Chicken
We did a simple marinade for these boneless, skinless, chicken thighs: salt, sugar, oregano, parsley, lemon and garlic for a few hours before grilling them hard on the first side for those delicious char marks, then a few more minutes on the second side.
Citrus Fennel Salad
We used 2 different oranges (Valencia and navel) and two grapefruits here. We supreme-d each citrus which took way longer and made way more of a mess than I anticipated. We used a tarragon champagne vinegar to top it all off!
Grilled Broccolini Pasta Salad
I love a pasta salad with lots of surprise elements and this was no exception. It had sun dried tomatoes, olives, bell peppers, grilled broccolini, shallots and parmesan! The vinaigrette was a simple: oil, grainy mustard, honey concoction. We are making this salad again for dinner this week it was THAT good!
Baklava
I’ve always wanted to make baklava and this week’s theme finally gave me the excuse I needed! I followed this NYTimes recipe. It was not as hard as I was expecting - mostly since it took way less time than I thought. To layer the whole thing took closer to 10 minutes than the 45 I was envisioning. I think my version ended up with not enough syrup, and perhaps not enough butter either? But as all the individual ingredients are so delicious, the whole thing ended up pretty tasty!
Lemon Poppy Seed Squares
These have immediately become one of my all time favorite desserts - will definitely be including them in my holiday boxes this year. They are the best of lemon bars (citrus forward and punchy) with the best of short bread (crumbly texture) and the flavor of lemon and poppy seed is just so good! Recipe by Melissa Clark via NYTimes Cooking