Make a study of flavors and textures for (meatless) dinner tonight.

Amanda's delicate touch pervades this dinner.

You'll be hearing from the staff at FOOD52 every week in Too Many Cooks, our group column in which we pool our answers to questions about food, cooking, life, and more.

There's something about August that calls for simple meals, lots of fruit-laden dessert, and...making a mess with your CSA's extra tomatoes? Here's what we've been up to this week, from babies to gingerbread beach babes.

It looks like both Amanda and Merrill are fans of lemon vinaigrette these days (A for her kids and M for weeknight meals with her husband -- Clara's still too small for such things). Here, Amanda explains how she actually prefers salads to sandwiches for Walker's and Addie's lunch:

"I'm trying to make my kids more all-in-one salads like this tuna couscous salad. They're easy for my kids to eat -- actually easier than a sandwich -- and you can pile in lots of good flavors. Here, I blended oil-packed tuna, Israeli couscous, haricots verts, olives, capers, sliced baby garlic, and a lemon vinaigrette. Then for some crunch, I packed a few carrot sticks. And for a treat, a slice of City Bakery's mammoth chocolate chip cookies."

What's in your lunchbox?

Inspiration for tonight's dinner: seafoam and deep roots. Sweet and briny scallops sing a springy song in a tarragon cream sauce, while earthy roasted fennel and crunchy almonds dress up a million baubles of couscous. Surprise -- a quick weeknight meal doesn't have to be same old same old after all. We've got it all planned out for you, just glance and execute!

Read more

What's for lunch in the twins' lunchboxes today? Looks like a really good one!

The grain salad you see is couscous with citrus, thyme, and raisins -- a riff on this contest runner up from the first FOOD52 cookbook -- and it's topped with good-quality oil-packed tuna. A kale salad (looks like Lacinato) rounds out the meal, and for dessert it's chocolate cake. Specifically, it's the Community Pick Chocolate and Cabernet Sauvignon Italian Cake. It was made with pinot noir, but yes, the wine is cooked!

What's for lunch today? Anyone else have chocolate cake in their plans?

Say goodbye to winter.