American plates with a cheese and broccoli stuffed chicken, beef kebobs and a plum basil salad

Kebobs are traditionally about fire, and no domestic oven reproduces that, so I stop pretending and use what an oven is good at instead. The beef sirloin and the peppers go in hot enough that the juices reduce down in the dish rather than sitting there boiling, which is the liquid pooled underneath them in the tray.

Plums were the best fruit at the market this week, so they go over romaine with cucumber and a great deal of shredded basil, and the peach vinaigrette on the side is the only sweet thing anywhere near them. Nothing in that bowl is cooked. It is at its best on day one and merely good by day three, which is the trade you make for fruit this ripe. Dress it at the table.

Reheating: the cheese and broccoli stuffed chicken breast wants 12 minutes at 350°F covered, so the filling catches up with the meat rather than the other way round. Beef sirloin kebobs come off the stick first, then 3 minutes in a hot pan. The pesto burrata gnocchi needs 4 minutes covered with the burrata put back afterwards, and the sesame garlic green beans and lemony farro are both better cold.