The Sunday Dinner That Marks the End of Summer

School is back, the calendar has structure again, and the Sunday table follows suit. This isn't a quick weeknight plate — it's the full sequence: something to start, a pasta course, a main, a side, and something sweet to close it out. Still built on late-summer ingredients, just with the kind of pacing only a Sunday allows.

Cheese and Cherry Tomato Bruschetta toasts bread under the broiler, rubs it with garlic, then tops it with creamy crescenza and fresh cherry tomatoes, finished with torn basil. A five-minute start to a meal that takes the rest of the afternoon.

Pro tip: rub the garlic clove over the bread while it's still warm from the broiler — the heat releases the garlic's oil into the crust far more than rubbing it on cold bread ever would.

White Baked Pasta tosses fusilli with sautéed zucchini, peas, and diced cooked ham, then binds it all in a ricotta béchamel before a quick gratin under the broiler. No tomato at all — the béchamel and ricotta do the work instead.

Pro tip: keep the sautéed vegetables crunchy rather than fully soft — they'll continue cooking briefly under the broiler, and starting too soft leaves them mushy by the time the top turns golden.

Baked Crispy Chicken coats chicken breast strips in a mix of rolled oats, breadcrumbs, paprika, and chili, then bakes them until golden — all the crunch of fried chicken without the oil. Mediterranean flavor, weeknight-easy technique, Sunday-portioned.

Pro tip: turn the chicken strips halfway through baking rather than leaving them untouched — the side facing up browns faster than the side against the tray, and flipping once evens out the crust on both sides.

Peppers with Breadcrumbs simmers red and yellow pepper strips in olive oil, then finishes them under a lid with a mixture of stale breadcrumbs, pecorino, capers, and garlic until the topping toasts. A Southern Italian side dish that holds its own as an appetizer too.

Pro tip: don't add the breadcrumb mixture until the peppers are already soft — breadcrumbs added too early absorb the cooking oil and turn soggy instead of toasting properly at the end.

Lactose-Free Panna Cotta with Blueberry Sauce sets a vanilla cream with gelatin, unmolds it onto the plate, then tops it with a quick blueberry sauce reduced down to a syrup. Piedmont's classic spoon dessert, no dairy required.

Pro tip: dip only the outside of the mold in hot water before unmolding, not the whole thing — a few seconds is enough to loosen the edges without melting the dessert itself.

Nothing here needs to be rushed. Five courses spread out over a few hours is the whole point of a Sunday — the kind of pace that disappears the rest of the week and comes back, right on schedule, the moment the routine does.