I Love Lunch. It’s My New Dinner - No. 41

Some fabulous grilled chicken skewers to prep ahead for lunch or dinner

Kathleen’s Yogurt-Marinated Chicken Skewers. Photos: Kathleen Osteen.

LAST MONTH I GATHERED with cousins on my sister’s screened porch to celebrate my birthday.

We talked about the news and the weather and kids and grandkids and then dove straight into sliced tomatoes and old memories.

It was a typical summer meal - chicken salad with grapes and celery, marinated black-eyed pea salad, fresh fruit, hot rolls, pimento cheese, and sliced Cherokee Purple tomatoes from my garden. For dessert, with a candle and the birthday song, were little flourless chocolate cakes my sister picked up at the neighborhood farmers market.

It felt incredibly European to linger over a midday meal. And cell phones were off for those two hours we ate and reminisced. 

Make some melon balls before the end of summer! Just need a melon baller and a ripe cantaloupe, honeydew or watermelon.

What is it about lunch that makes you want to linger?

I love lunch, maybe more than dinner. And I don’t feel guilty saying that because I’ve spent a lifetime cooking dinner.

Possibly it’s because Covid has relaxed our schedules so we can spend a couple hours on a porch sharing a meal if we like.

And it’s definitely the food I’m drawn to... bright, nostalgic picnic sort of fare you can savor in one sitting and then enjoy as leftovers all week.

I remember my mother making molded tomato aspics, melon balls, and frozen fruit salad, maybe even a hot chicken salad casserole, and ice cream parfaits she’d stash in the freezer. It was 1970s ladies’ lunch kind of food, but as I recall, men gobbled it up, too.

My mother-in-law was mad about lunch as well, and flipping through her old cookbooks I recently found scribbled notes of some serious lunch planning: Chicken & aspic mold, marinated French green beans, corn pudding or potato salad, rolls, lemon squares. She was a big fan of cookbook author Sadie Le Sueur who along with Helen Corbitt of Texas were, in my opinion, the goddesses of all things lunch.

According to John Mariani in The Dictionary of American Food & Drink, the word “lunch” first referred to just a slice of food. But later, in the mid-1800s, it became an abbreviation of the fashionable word “luncheon,” which replaced the word “dinner” to describe the midday meal.

As work took more people out of the fields and into factories and offices, they didn’t want a heavy meal in the middle of the day. So lunches got lighter and evolved into the sandwiches and salads we know today.

The lunch I crave is bright, bold and involves delicious planned-overs.

I have friends who struggle with lunch. They tell me they don’t enjoy it - too many calories - or they are too busy and graze right through it. Nathalie Dupree is so adamant about not cooking lunch that she has a phrase she lives by: “For better or worse, but not for lunch.”

But lunch is when I’m the hungriest and when food tastes best. And I’m drawn to meals with bold flavor, especially the way my daughter Kathleen marinates and grills chicken and how that chicken tastes piled onto a big salad with tzatziki or peanut sauce. It’s my new chicken salad.

You slice boneless, skinless chicken thighs into strips and then let them bathe in yogurt, coconut milk, garlic, fresh ginger, and aromatic spices in the fridge for 24 hours. If you’ve got the time, grill them on skewers or, if not, just roast them on a sheet pan. You’ll have this stash of tender, fragrant chicken to pile onto salads or tuck into wraps.

I might not use the starched linen napkins like my mother’s generation did. I might not chill a tomato aspic mold. But I can pull out my mother’s silver forks and pile the salad onto my husband’s grandmother’s old English plates. And then carry our lunch out onto the porch where the light is warm and soft. 

And we can talk.

That’s what lunch offers - conversation. And I’m hungry for it, too.

How do you lunch?

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A New Take on Cake Pre-order Continues!

Have you pre-ordered? Don’t let supply chain issues slow down your holiday shopping! Plus, you get the 7 Bonus Recipes to bake now when you pre-order.

And kudos to newsletter reader Jackie Cunningham who was the first to pre-order and bake one of the bonus recipes and tell me about it! She didn’t have a 12-inch skillet to bake the plum cake so she substituted a 10 1/2-inch pan (40 minutes to bake) plus a smaller 6-inch skillet (done in 22 minutes). ”How I wish I had taken a pic of the whole cake but...I could not wait to cut into that beautiful cake and get a bite!... my next is going to be that gorgeous Banana-Cinnamon Swirl Pound Cake! Can’t wait for the book!” Thank you Jackie!

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Coming this Subscriber Thursday:

It’s a sneak peek inside my fall newsletter lineup. Can’t wait to share! Plus another great lunch recipe to prep ahead for fall… the big grain salad. Between the Layers recipes will be archived soon for subscribers. Join us!

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THE RECIPE: Kathleen’s Yogurt-Marinated Chicken Skewers

Kathleen and I marinated boneless, skinless chicken thighs in the mixture of yogurt, coconut and seasonings in Ziplock bags overnight. Then, we threaded the chicken onto wooden skewers and grilled them. You can make a bunch for dinner to serve with rice and a veg and then have leftovers to top your salad. Or, better yet, marinate, grill, then pile the skewers onto a big platter with spears of European cucumber and invite some friends over for lunch!

Makes 6 servings

2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1 cup plain Greek yogurt, of any fat content you’ve got

1 cup canned coconut milk

6 to 8 cloves garlic, pressed or minced

2 to 3 tablespoons grated fresh ginger

1 teaspoon fish sauce

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cumin

Dash of chili powder

1. Cut the chicken thighs into 1-inch strips and place in a very large Ziplock bag. Place the yogurt, coconut milk, garlic, ginger, fish sauce, turmeric, salt, cumin, and chili powder in a medium bowl and whisk to combine. Pour over the chicken. Seal the bag. Toss the bag and massage it to distribute the marinade over the chicken. Place in the fridge to marinate 24 hours or overnight. (Or, you can save clean-up by prepping the marinade in the Ziplock and add the chicken to the marinade.)

2. When ready to cook, pull the chicken out of the marinade and thread onto metal or wooden (they will burn a bit even if you soak first in water) skewers. Discard the marinade.

3. Prepare a hot grill - charcoal or gas. Place skewers on the grill and cook on both sides until browned. Depending on the grill, it can be anywhere from 3 or 4 minutes to 8 or 9 per side. You may need to continue to grill and rotate the skewers until cooked through. Repeat with the remaining skewers. Serve hot with rice or let cool, then wrap and place in the fridge overnight. Serve with salad greens, avocado, tomatoes, slaw, roasted sweet potatoes, corn, whatever’s in your fridge! Serve with peanut sauce or tzatziki sauce (plain Greek yogurt, minced cukes, olive oil, fresh dill or mint, garlic, lemon juice and salt.)

Oven Method: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Distribute the chicken on one or two sheet pans so it has room to spread out and is not touching. Bake until crispy, about 30 to 35 minutes. Halfway though, run a spatula under the chicken and flip it, then return to the oven.