Frosty cocktails and dinner salads, summertime is here, right? Easy cooking and meals that come together quickly, that’s what we all want when it’s time to open the windows wide, as we’d really rather be outside.

My mother-in-law passed early Tuesday morning. We had the funeral in Baltimore on Thursday. She had lived a good long 96+ years. So on Wednesday night, our oldest son and his fiancée came over for dinner and spent the night so we could all drive to Baltimore together. Obviously I had not planned for four for dinner this week but here’s what I threw together. It was great for a hot summer, late night meal.

Fortunately I had defrosted a package of 4 chicken thighs with bone and skin. I had some baby spinach and romaine lettuce, potatoes, mini sweet peppers, radishes and tomatoes. I threw in some caperberries and lemon halves to roast with the potatoes and chicken. Over the finished salad, I drizzled a tiny bit of olive oil and with a squeeze of the roasted lemons – DELISH!!

The caperberries got crunchy – a nice and interesting little bit of salt crunch every once in a while. The potatoes, baby Yukon Gold, were creamy dreamy. And roasting the lemons at the high heat of 425 degrees made them almost sweet! You can just salt and pepper your chicken on both sides but I was also trying out a new possible product for the summer box, delicious and high in garlic content, so I will tell you to just add some garlic powder and sesame seeds on the thighs, in order to not ruin the surprise of this product in the upcoming summer box.

Here’s what I did.

DINNER SALAD WITH ROASTED CHICKEN THIGHS, CAPERBERRIES AND ROASTED LEMONS – serves 4

4 chicken thighs with bone and skin 
Salt
Pepper
Garlic powder
Sesame seeds
5.5 oz. baby spinach leaves
3 – 4 romaine lettuce leaves, washed, dried and torn into bite size pieces
1.75 lbs. baby Yukon Gold potatoes – scrubbed, dried and cut into 2“ chunks
2 Tbs. olive oil, plus more to drizzle on finished salads
1/3 cup caperberries, drained
2 whole lemons, washed, dried and cut in half
8 radishes, scrubbed clean and dried, trim if greens are not nice
½ cup sugar snap peas, washed, strings removed, and cut on a diagonal into slices
3 tomatoes, washed, dried and each cut into 8 wedges
4 small sweet peppers – yellow, orange or red, washed, dried, split in half lengthwise, seeds removed
3 scallions, cleaned and sliced, white, light green and some dark green parts
Maldon salt
Fresh ground pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Toss potatoes with 2 Tbs. olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast potatoes in the oven for 15 minutes. Then add the caperberries to the potatoes and toss and return to the oven for 20 – 30 minutes more.

Meanwhile, wash and dry chicken thighs, removing all fat and extra skin on the edges. Season both sides with salt, pepper, garlic powder and sesame seeds, pressing them in to adhere. Place thighs on a rack on a rimmed baking sheet, add lemon halves in the corners of the baking sheet, cut side down and roast on the top shelf in the oven for  30 – 40 minutes.

Prepare all the other vegetables.

Distribute the spinach and romaine lettuce leaves evenly among four dinner plates. Place chicken thighs in the center and evenly distribute all the other vegetables around the chicken, putting one roasted lemon half on each plate and finishing with the scallions sprinkled all over. Drizzle olive oil on the vegetables in a circle around the chicken, and squeeze the lemon all around. Finish with some crushed Maldon salt and fresh ground pepper.

Serve with LOVE and enjoy!! We paired this with an Alsace Riesling – perfect! (Steve – what do you think?)

Last weekend, I was also playing around with cocktails and another box item. More on that to come later after the summer box is shipped on June 25th. Here’s a photo to whet your appetite.