Summer is not a roasting season. Or rather, if you want to enjoy your cooking, it's best to avoid a session roasting in your kitchen. Better by the pool. But then living on cold soup and yogurt isn't the most interesting way to enjoy the lazy, hazy days of July and August. Luckily I have a stove with a griddle – or what I refer to as a poor man's "plancha" (Spanish for grill). My griddle may not be the top of the line, but it serves me well whether for pancakes, vegetables, or grilling meat and seafood. 

Just a bit of oil, hot plancha and your in business, fennel and garlic.

 To go with asparagus and radicchio.

Grilled grass fed beef filet, smashed yukon gold with plancha salad of peppers, onions, scallions with basil and avocado.

Local Long Island fluke a'la plancha with corn, black bean, jicama salad.

So if you feel like Sancho Panza, get light, fire up the plancha!