A summer night is really the easiest time to have people over.  Summer food generally requires less work because there are so many fresh vegetables that need very little dressing up to taste great.  And it is much easier, or at least more pleasant to chat and hang out with guests while watching a grill than while hovering over the stove in a hot kitchen. 

We were in the mood for steak and decided to keep it extra simple with just a fresh herb sauce to top it with after grilling.  Glynn found this Italian-ish one from Saveur and it was so good.  You just pile all the herbs on a cutting board and chop, then stir together with olive oil.  (The leftovers also made an insanely delicious pasta sauce.)

For the herb sauce: 

1 cup packed basil leaves

1 cup packed flat-leaf parsley leaves

2 tbsp. packed fresh oregano leaves

1 tbsp. packed fresh rosemary leaves

1 tbsp. packed fresh thyme leaves

1 tbsp. packed fresh tarragon leaves

2 cloves garlic, minced

3⁄4 cup plus 2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Make a big pile of the herbs and garlic on a cutting board.  Chop away until everything is nice and small then transfer to a bowl and stir in the olive oil.  Season with salt and pepper.  Make it ahead of time if possible so the flavors meld together.  

To keep the rest of the menu light and fresh, we went for some extra easy salads that required no cooking at all.  The first was a raw zucchini salad with Parmesan.  Slice the zucchini as thin as possible – a mandolin is best – and arrange it in some nice pretty circles or rows.  Squeeze some fresh lemon juice over the top and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Shave some Parmesan over top and then drizzle with olive oil and you are good to go. 

Next up was a tomato buratta combo because tomatoes are amazing right now and everyone loves buratta right?  Right.  So pretty tomatoes, buratta, olive oil, basil, salt and pepper.  That’s it. 

We threw in a kale salad for you know nutrients and stuff.  Our got to for a simple but tasty kale salad involves avocado and a mix of nuts and seeds – pistachios, pepitas, sunflower seeds – or whatever you have around.   Toss it all with lemon and olive oil, and… yah salt and pepper.  Basically this whole meal is just things drizzled with olive oil, salt and pepper.  WIN! 

Soooo the grilled bread.  Olive oil of course but we went crazy and did garlic salt on this one.  Old school Lawry’s brand garlic salt because really there is no reason to try and be fancy with garlic bread. 

The pretty drinks pictured are gin and tonics with a wedge of peach and a sprig of thyme.  These were in the last issue of Bon Appetit and we magically had everything at home.  Don’t you love when that happens?  Though really we always have gin and tonic so basically we had a peach.  And really you could use any fruit but STILL.  Anytime you can instantly recreate the photo from the magazine with out leaving the house you do it.   And to be honest you don’t really taste the peach really but it certainly looks festive and summery so why not?