Rainbow hued and super seasonal, this week's Dinner Tonight has a gracious elegance that might just inspire a little pinky's-up sort of behavior, which is never a bad thing. It pops and crunches with cherry tomatoes and cucumbers, and gets satisfying richness (and protein!) from delicate accents of buttermilk, cream and feta. Buy the very best you can afford (or find) as far as those touches go, and you'll have a truly heavenly little repast.
Click through on the recipe photos or titles to see (and save and print) the full recipes, but we've also written you a handy game plan below.
The Menu
Dilled, Crunchy Sweet-Corn Salad with Buttermilk Dressing by creamtea
Cherry Tomato Clafoutis by Meredith Shanley
The Grocery List (for 4)
1/3 cup cream
2/3 cup yogurt
Feta and/or goat cheese (the clafoutis calls for goat cheese & the salad calls for feta, but in the interest of simplicity this can easily be a one-cheese-fits-all sort of thing.)
1/4 cup buttermilk
1 shallot
3 ears corn
4 Persian cucumbers (or whatever good-looking cucumber you find)
1 red sweet pepper
12-14 cherry tomatoes
Fresh dill, parsley, tarragon, chives (or whatever fresh herbs you like -- the dill is the only requirement, for the salad)
We assume you have milk, eggs, white wine vinegar, onion, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. If not, you'll be needing all of that good stuff as well.
The Plan
1. Begin by soaking the shallot slices in vinegar to dull their harshness, as creamtea so smartly suggests. She calls for a 20 minute dip, but a little longer here or there won't hurt.
2. Heat the oven and whip up that clafoutis. It bakes for about 30 minutes.
3. While it bakes, slice and dice the salad and mix the dressing.
4. Pull the clafoutis out and dress the salad. Serve! This dinner is begging you to open a bottle of Champagne but if that's not quite your style, a lovely white Burgundy would do the trick. Mental-health-wise, a little mid-week luxury goes a long way, so treat yourself!
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