So now it's summer!

[Tesha]

This weekend was HOT here, and after working in the yard for hours I got the usual summer dilemma. Switch the recipe list in my head to warm-weather foods! No more shopping for and cooking nice warming soups and roasts, now I've got to think salads and grilling.


let's see - grill a steak, have some tonight and save some to have cold on romaine tomorrow. Macaroni salads. Grilled fish. Anything to keep from heating the house! Cold raw veggies ready to eat in baggies

what else keeps the kitchen cool? Yikes! What about bread?

[grasswire]

1. I have plans to cook a different way this summer

I always half-heartedly do this, but I'm going to really really do it this time. I know that our pal hippywife is very good at this.

One day a week I'm going to spend a lot of time filling the fridge, so that suppers are easy and cool all week. I'll concentrate the cooking and the prep.

We don't grill much, unfortunately. The backyard is small and the fumes just seem overpowering to us and the neighbors.

[Tesha]

2. that is a great idea!

The house only has to be burdened with extra heat once a week...

but then I face my singe biggest hurdle - planning!

[grasswire]

4. but with a basic plan, you could vary so many ways!

If, for example, I roast a turkey breast or a ham or make meat balls or .... and I make the basics for some deli-style salads, such as cook some pasta, roast some vegetables and redskin potatoes, cook some couscous or quinoa, and prep a lot of vegetables and stock some cheeses and jarred things, I could go a lot of different directions each night, spontaneously. Mexican, Greek, Indian, Italian....whatever.

The chicken/turkey could become taco filling, or caesar salad, or old-fashioned chicken salad, or sandwiches, or a zillion other things. And so it is with the other basics that get cooked on "pantry day."

It's not a new idea. Just takes some determination.

[supernova]

3. Solar ovens seem like a good solution

especially if you still want to bake and not have the heat in the house.

Here's one model



http://www.solarovens.org/

[Tesha]

5. whoa! I hadn't thought of that...

very interesting... it's like a “solar crock pot.”


$190.91 (incls. $32.97 shipping) I should start saving for this.

[supernova]

6. You can get a solar reflector

that concentrates the heat and brings it up to about 400-450 too.

[Tab]

7. Yeah, winter is reserved for roasting, jambalaya, etc.

Summer is for grilling, unless it's cold and rainy.

[Warpy]

8. What else keeps the kitchen cool?

Try a solar oven. I got mine from Sun Ovens online and I can now enjoy all kinds of baked and stewed stuff in midsummer without raising the temp inside the house a fraction of a degree.