Summer Italian menu with pesto, stone fruit and slow-cooked grains

Beef sirloin kebobs only work if the meat and the vegetables are cut to the same thickness, or the zucchini is finished long before the sirloin is. I marinate the beef for four hours, thread the skewers loosely so heat can get between the pieces, and sear them hard rather than roasting them through. The sugar free bbq sauce goes on the side, which keeps anything sweet away from that heat.

The only nuts on this table are the pecans over the Brussel sprouts, and they sit on top rather than being cooked in, so they lift straight off. The cheese and broccoli stuffed chicken breast is the one dish that cannot go dairy free without losing what it actually is. Everything else, from the cumin baked bell peppers and chickpeas to the mixed sweet potatoes, adjusts without an argument.

The sweet potatoes arrived in four colors this week, purple through red, and they all went into a single tray so the browning would match across the lot. Plums are at their peak, which is exactly why that salad is plum, romaine, cucumber and basil and nothing more elaborate. Buying at the right point in the season saves me more work than any technique I own.