Recipes for warmer days..

[Jyotsna]

Today I baked bread and noticed that the house was miserable because of it. I even opened the doors but it was still hot.

So, I'm starting to think about non-oven meals, where we start eating cooler foods like salads for every meal, or cooking pasta salads in a batch (1 x per week) and cooling them.

So what are your standard warm weather recipes, that keep you away from the oven, and help keep the house cool? I have three children and myself, and my son is eating me out of house and home. So naturally, cooked meals have appealed to him more.

Thanx

[pibblestiltskin@ma]

Can you grill outside? You can even grill pizza!!!Or use a crockpot for cooked meals - on another board I visit someone mentioned putting their crockpot in the garage to keep the house even cooler.

Some of my favorite hearty salads are:

chick peas with couscous (or quinoa) and cucumbers.
tuna with chickpeas and onion
green salad with toasted goat cheese



What about cold soups like gazpacho or cucmber?

[*Jessica*]

We grill a lot in the summer. I love to grill kabobs and then serve in a pita with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, red onion, feta, kalamata olives, and Greek Dressing or tzatziki.

Different kinds of salads we enjoy:
Three Bean Salad
Tortellini salad with veggies of choice and Caesar dressing
Strawberry Spinach Salad with chicken added to make it a main dish

Slow cooker meals work great for the summer. See the HUGE crockpot thread for recipes.

We also eat a lot of the things found on the snack tray thread and call it a meal. I might load a large tray with cheeses, a few kinds of fruit, a few kinds of veggies from the garden or the local produce stand, some chickpeas, olives, cold leftover marinated chicken or steak, nuts, whatever we have on hand really.

[BetsyS]

We grill alot in the summer, too. I also use the crockpot. Our favorites in the crock pot are dried beans and roast beef. I'll shred the beef to make french dip sandwiches or tacos/quesadillas/burritos.

Main dish salads are good.

If something really needs the oven, I'll use the toaster oven in the summer. I put a moratorium on the big oven when it's hot, though, so from about now-October.

[becoming]

We fresh tomato sandwiches with mayo and cheese.

[wife&mommy]

We love this one:

http://familieseatinghealthy.blogspo...cous-cous.html

and this one...

http://familieseatinghealthy.blogspo...oppy-joes.html

and we really love these sandwiches:

http://familieseatinghealthy.blogspo...andwiches.html

[nicolelynn]

I also do alot of salads in the summer...chicken salads, salads with sliced steak, tuna and bean salad, antipasta salad made with Applegate farms salami and tons of veggies etc...and gazpacho made with home-made chilled chicken stock and fresh sliced avacado is very nourishing. I also love ceviche made with fresh fish.

I just bought a toaster oven as well as I figured it will heat my already miserably hot kitchen less than the oven does. Not to mention I will save on energy bills as our propane costs more than our electricity. In general though I just use the stove top in the summer. I make a cooked breakfast of eggs or something as it is less hot then... plus I am a big breakfast person, and stick with mostly fresh stuff for lunch and dinner.

[cristeen]

I have 3 stand-by salads that I can count on DH to eat as a meal.

1- Taco salad - lettuce, beans, cooked and chilled meat, cheese, tomatoes, onions, avocado, olives, green chiles, and a dressing of mayo and taco sauce.

2- Tropical chicken salad - lettuce, leftover chopped chicken, banana, coconut, peanut, bell pepper, celery, with my special tangy dressing.

3- Duck salad - lettuce, chopped smoked duck breast, pecans, dried cranberries or (tart) cherries, blue cheese, and my special sweet dressing.

Other than that, in the summer I either make meals that require a minimal of cooking (like tonight... we're having a heat wave). I'll usually grill once a week or so, cooking enough for several nights.

Tonight's dinner was just simply tossing a couple slices of bacon, chopped into a skillet, adding some chili powder, butter, chopped onion and 1 lb of frozen corn. With a little cheese toast on the side I called it dinner. Last night I made homemade sushi with some frozen ahi, cucumber, avocado, onion and nori.

[Rigama]

We lived in a house that got stupid hot, even without turning on the stove or oven...I'm talking like 89 degrees without cooking ANYTHING. Man it sucked! Basically, from mid May to Sept. I grilled stuff and cooked on the stove very little. Things that I did cook would be fast and not involve the oven. I put the crock pot in the sun room to keep the house a little cooler.

Crock pot beans
Crock pot roast
Crock pot chicken and rice
Crock pot baked potatoes

Pasta and sauce
Eggs for egg burritos
Chili made from either crock pot beans or canned red beans
grilled cheese sandwiches

"chef" salad
cold sandwiches
smoothies
fruit, salami, cheese, bread and wine

These were my staples. Sometimes I'd get sick of them and suck it up and actually cook something and dh would come home to a hot wife dressed in nothing but a bathing suit.

[Alyantavid]

blt's
grilled chicken salad
taco salad
anything grilled outside

[flminivanmama]

my mom uses the grill as an oven a lot - turns on the grill, puts whatever she would have baked or roasted in a pan, puts it on the grill.

it works great but I am not sure how precise it would be for baked goods. (bread, brownies, etc.)

[LittleSaylorBoat]

In the summer instead of making individual chocolate chip cookies on cookie sheets that had to go in and out of the oven, my mother would put all the cookie dough into a big brownie pan so that the oven door only had to be opened twice and make cookie bars. We even called them "summertime cookies".

[jessjgh1]

Originally Posted by LittleSaylorBoat

In the summer instead of making individual chocolate chip cookies on cookie sheets that had to go in and out of the oven, my mother would put all the cookie dough into a big brownie pan so that the oven door only had to be opened twice and make cookie bars. We even called them "summertime cookies".

You could use a toaster oven for a small batch of cookies, too. Freeze the rest.

Jessica

[2mama]

Jennifers Recipe-- Named after a rn I used to work with that gave me the recipe!!

1 can kidney beans
1 can black beans
1 can garbnzo beans
3/4 bottle newmans own olive oil vinegerette
3-4 cloves of garlic
1 bunch of cilantro
1 pound of tomatoes
1 bag of tortilla chips

Rinse beans, add all three cans to a med. bowl, chop tomatoes, cilantro, and garlic - add to bowl, pour salad dressing over it, mix and chill and eat with tortilla chips like you would salsa- kids will gobble it up with the chips!!

we usually eat this with cantalop or watermelon!!

Enjoy!!

[Semi_Crunchy]

I came here to post this same question! I never thought of my crock pot!
But I did want to bump to see if anyone else had some delicious recipes to share.
I don't have a grill nor do I have a place to put it and even using the gas stove top makes me want to keel over

[spiderdust]

I found this link on the New York Times website for 101 summer meals that are ready in 10 minutes or less.

[KatWrangler]

I do alot of roasts in the crockpot during the summer. Like porkloin and saurkraut or beef (shred for sandwiches or taco fillings).

[pumpkin]

Subscribing to this one. Our ac is on the fritz so we have banned the use of the oven or stove until it is fixed.

DH is super picky. So far the only thing I've come up with is sandwiches.

[spiderdust]

Tonight we're having tacos... the stove is only getting turned on to brown the ground beef, but veggie tacos wouldn't even need that.

[flminivanmama]

our ac is broken now too! it's 87 degrees in the house. I made a pasta salad today.

I am c&ping good ideas off that NYT link!

do we have a sweaty smilie? or just this guy? :

oh well they don't... but they do have

me flushed from the heat ---->
me wiping sweat from my face ---->:
me feeling like I am on fire ----->