Photos by Michael Piazza / Styled by Catrine Kelty

With the dog days of summer approaching, and long-range forecasters predicting another scorcher for the Boston area, I’m looking forward to cooking outside as much as possible. My family is incredibly lucky to spend our summers by the seashore on Cape Cod, where steady sea breezes keep us so much cooler than we would be at home, but even there the kitchen can get beastly hot by late July.

So we plan our cooking accordingly, doing kitchen prep in the early part of the day, then throwing everything on the grill at once when we’re all ready to eat. With a little foresight, it’s pretty simple to do, and it’s even better done with a partner: One person mans the grill, while the other quickly finishes the side dishes and veggies.

Here are three complete meals prepared on the grill. There’s a little kitchen work to do in the morning, and some tossing and plattering once the grilling’s done, but otherwise they’re meals cooked entirely outside. And they’re all the more enjoyable eaten out there, too, preferably at dusk, when the crickets start to sing and the coolness of evening lifts the heat away.

Recipes