Tuscan and Mediterranean plates with a rosemary ribeye, charred pineapple salsa and a tofu vegetable soup

Creamy tuscan chicken is a modern invention rather than anything traditional, and the home version usually drowns itself in cream. This one leans on the pan juices and parmesan, with only enough cream to carry the spinach through. It reduces before the chicken goes back in, so what is in the container is a sauce and not a soup. By day four it thickens further, which I would call an improvement.

Peaches and corn are worth buying at the market right now, so the farro grain salad takes both raw, cut into the warm grain with arugula so the heat only just softens them. The pineapple for the salsa went the other direction entirely, charred hard in a dry pan until it turned sweet and smoky enough to stand next to the ribeye. Same shopping trip, opposite treatments. That contrast is most of what makes this menu work.

There is a full vegetarian route: the tofu and toasted veggies soup, the ricotta stuffed mini peppers, the snap peas with almonds, the balsamic brussel sprouts. Reheating, the lemony shrimp scampi wants 4 minutes covered at 325°F and nothing more, because shrimp do not survive being cooked three times. The creamy tuscan chicken takes 10 minutes covered at 350°F with a spoon of water stirred in. Sourdough croutons stay out of the soup until the bowl is on the table.