Mediterranean and French plates with a poached cod, a coq au vin blanc and peanut butter thumbprint cookies

Cod comes apart the second it is overcooked, so this is poached rather than baked: lemon, tomato and oil held at a bare simmer until the flakes only just separate. Capers go in at the end so they stay sharp instead of dissolving. The turkey italian meatballs went into their tomato basil raw and cooked through in the sauce itself, which keeps them soft in a way that searing first never manages. Two proteins, and neither one ever met a hot dry pan.

Heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion and basil, with the sourdough croutons packed apart so they are still crisp when the bowl finally gets dressed. The same market run put zucchini and yellow squash into the summer veggies penne. Both are at their best within three days and neither improves past that.

The thumbprint cookies are the kids end of this menu: peanut butter, almond flour, oats, maple syrup and a sugar free jam pressed into the middle. There is no wheat flour in them at all, which makes them the easiest thing here to hand to someone avoiding gluten. For the rest, the coq au vin blanc wants 12 minutes covered at 350°F, the turkey meatballs 10 minutes in their own sauce, and the mediterranean poached cod 5 minutes at 300°F or nothing at all.