Dinner on the roof

We may not have a yard in Manhattan, but we have a roof deck.  It's cool and breezy up there on summer evenings, and that makes it a great place to entertain guests, have dinner with your family, or just spend some time alone (in the New York sense).

This weekend, as I was figuring out how to use my new cookbooks and use up my CSA vegetables all at once, I went up there for some oregano, and found it empty.  That gave me an idea--Saturday night dinner on the roof!  

Now in all honesty, I didn't even start looking at the cookbooks until 5:30, and even then, I got was a little absent minded, so it took me a long time, and two trips to Garden of Eden, to prepare this dinner, and it wasn't ready until 8:30.  As we were going up with our dishes, we met another family on their way down.  (There's a sign up sheet if you want to guarantee yourself a table, or avoid a party of 30, but no one minds another family eating dinner.  We might even join them!)

The entree was Grilled Tuna with Grilled Bread and Aioli from Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Cooking, only I made the salsa verde variation, using swordfish from the farmers' market, and since my other dish had bread, I omitted it.  Do you think I could have changed that any more?  

The salsa verde was quite good, and Alice Waters recommends substituting some marjoram for the parsley with tuna, but I didn't use tuna, or have fresh marjoram, whereas I was running over with flat-leaf parsley, so I used that.  It was delicious!

Salsa Verde

1/3 c. coarsely chopped parsley

grated zest of 1 lemon

1 small garlic clove, chopped very fine or pounded into a puree

1 T. capers, rinsed, drained and coarsely chopped

1/2 t. salt

ground pepper to taste

1/2 c. olive oil

Let sauce sit for a while to develop the flavors

What could be more simple?  Well, I forget to chop the capers before dumping them in, but it didn't seem to hurt any.  Here's Bob setting down his empty plate:

 I also wanted to use all that broccoli and broccoli rabe in my refrigerator, so I decided to try the bruschetta by the same name from Deborah Madison's Local Flavors.  If I felt flippant, I might call this Southern greens on toast, but it was better than that.  The country bread held up even with the juices, the greens were flavorful with oregano, vinegar and pepper flakes, and the melted slice of mozzarella gave it just the texture boost it needed.  I took a photo of this one!

We had some local peaches with creme fraiche for dessert, and then sat out and enjoyed the breeze. We really ought to do this more often!