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Outdoor Entertaining Menu and Planner

Featured Recipes: White Sangria, Summer Paella, Grilled Tomato Gazpacho, Grilled Peaches & Angel Food Cake with Red Wine Sauce

Here's a summer entertaining menu that is healthy, delicious and easy to make ahead.

By Cheryl and Bill Jamison, for EatingWell

Menu Planner | Recipes

Ever since we were kids, we have loved the camaraderie of summer nights spent gathered around the grill. Bill, who grew up in Texas, was always a burger boy, and Cheryl, from Illinois, a s’mores addict. We still indulge (occasionally) in those old treats, but our food interests have evolved over time, becoming better balanced nutritionally and more ambitious in flavor.

Now, we’re fortunate to live in northern New Mexico, where summer brings brilliant sunshine, blue skies and just enough rain to grow wonderful produce, all powerful incentives to spend as much time as possible outdoors. That’s why we start the day early at the Santa Fe Farmers Market, among the country’s most vibrant, getting there in time to beat the crowds and chat with our favorite vendors.

Because grilling is such an elemental cooking form, it is best suited to using top-notch ingredients, treated simply. For this meal, we pick up peppers, chiles, tomatoes, greens, eggplants, onions, peaches and fragrant melons from Jake West, who has been selling at the farmers’ market for decades. Once we’re home we’ll pick fresh herbs from our garden, just steps away from the grill.

The beauty of this Spanish-inspired meal is that it frees you from the kitchen and gets you out onto the patio with your friends. It stars a golden paella dotted with grilled shrimp and sausages along with fire-kissed vegetables. A smoky eggplant salad and grilled vegetable gazpacho round out the meal. The white sangria, olive-almond spread and gazpacho can all be made ahead (see planner), before your guests arrive. After dinner, grill the peaches and angel food cake for dessert, and you will never have to leave the party.

Even though cooking outside at the grill is festive, and seems easier than performing similar tasks inside, it frustrates many people. The problems almost always relate to the proper balance between the heat of the fire and the cooking time, so read our recipes carefully. In judging the level of a fire, we use the time-honored hand test, where you hold your hand about three inches above the cooking grate and see how long it takes before the fire forces you to pull your hand away. One to two seconds is a hot fire, perfect for searing something like shrimp. Four to five seconds is a moderate fire, just right for turkey or chicken sausages and nearly all seasonal vegetables and fruits. Start with a preheated and well-oiled cooking grate and you’re good to go.

It’s no sweat at all, even with the hot times ahead.

—Cheryl and Bill Jamison are the authors of the James Beard Award-winning The Big Book of Outdoor Cooking and Entertaining (William Morrow, 2006) and many other cookbooks.

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