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With states being shut down yet again, and the heat of summer upon us, I thought I might share some of the summer heat recipes I use a lot....keeping the kitchen a bit cooler to lessen the strain on our old air conditioner is a priority for us when the temps get over 85 degrees!  Im sure I am not the only one that grew up pre-air-conditioning and learned to cook this way as a matter of course....(remember sleeping on the porch??)  So for those of us not lucky enough to have a summer kitchen here are the things I do:

BASIC TENETS

1.  Use the grill as much as possible (naturally)

2.  Cook in the morning when it is cooler, and refrigerate until dinner time

3.  Keep iced water & treats (freezer pops are cheap) on hand for cooling snacks

4.  Crock pot recipes really shine in the summer....as do recipes for electric frypans.  This way you heat the pan, not the room!

 

SOME OF MY BASIC GO-TOS

 

1.  Macaroni Salad: mine is a basic one, cooked macroni elbows, miracle whip, minded green peppers, celery, onions, and pickle relish if you have it (or chop    up a pickle)  Add whatever you like to jazz it up - leftover cooked meats are great.

2.  Potato Salad: potatoes, dressing of choice (I like hald sour cream, half miracle whip or mayo) chopped celery & onions.  Add eggs for protein.  The men I make this for on occasion like chopped bacon (for them bacon is a separate food group!) or bacon bits.  This is sturdy enough to satisfy as a main dish

3.  Baked beans, chili, butter beans, etc in the crock pot.  Hot or cold these are relished (yes even cold chili).  

5.  Cooler corn:  Husk corn, boil up a large pot of water.  Do this in the morning.  Put the corn and the boiling water in a cooler (Make sure it will not be ruined by the hot water, styrofoam might not work, but an igloo type should).  Close it up.  It will cook and be ready in a couple of hours, for lunch.  You might have to reheat the water if waiting for dinner, depending on how much the cooler cooled down.  This is a variation of haybox cooking (older than dirt)  popular for large corn feasts, as a cooler can hold a lot of corn.  Again I remember eating corn as a main meal, with sides of baked beans and pickles.  We

ate what was plentiful in the garden, and this time of year it was....corn, with watermelopn iced down in a washtub for dessert.  If tomatoes were overrunning the kitchen a "fire and ice" salad (tomatoes, sliced onions, dressing).  Good for large family reunions.

6.  Soft tacos or quesadillas:  put whatever you like in it.  Grill the quesadillas on the grill.  For soft tacos, just fold over (easier than wraps) and chow down.  

7.  Cold cut roll ups:  nice for those watching their carbs.  Lay out slices of cold meat, layer with cheese slices, smear with mayo if you like it in there.  Some folks use a pickle spear to roll around in the middle, others don''t.  Pretty on a cold cut tray with pickles.

8.  Grilled cheese sandwiches (with whatever you have around to put inside).  With an electric frypan the heat is more direct, like on a grill, and the kitchen does not heat so bad. (heck, take it outside with an extension cord & cook on the picnic table!) We use grilled cheese with ham, or bacon, or chiken cold

cuts, or even fried eggs.  Nice with fresh tomatoes, but a little messy to eat.

9.  Pizza on the grill.

10.  Devilled egg plate (my DHs favorite in the summer): devilled eggs, well chilled, with cheese fingers, and assorted garden veggies cut for eating by hand, with a dressing to dip in (he loved ranch). Arrange restaurant style in a circle on a plate.  (Add a hot cup of coffee if you are one of those folks like me

who does not feel they "ate" without something hot, LOL. ) 

 

Im sure there are many more hot weather meals I have not thought of.  But with our wonky economy right now, keeping the air conditioning bills down is a real help with stretched budgets, and the old timey summer recipes are helpful once again.

Edited by kappydell
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Those are good ideas.  

 

Things we do mostly involve planned leftovers either as reheatable meals or as prepped 'ingredients' for other meals.  

 

1.  When grilling, grill a lot and just heat the leftovers with something.  We had chicken kabobs with chicken, onion, bell pepper, and zucchini on the grill on Monday.  Tuesday I took the leftover kabobs apart, tossed the chicken, bell pepper, and onion in a pot with a jar of sauce (tikka masala this time) and heated it though for about 15 minutes--served with rice microwaved for 20m (10 stir 10 for any amount of rice.  double water to rice add more water after stir if needed.)  Very little heat.  The zucchini was heated through with milk, onion, diced tomato, and a bit of curry powder for about 10m--again not much heat.  Tuesday's leftovers turn into microwave lunches.  

 

2.  Salads: garden salad, fruit salad, chicken salad (using canned or leftover chicken.)  Chicken, egg, or tuna salad:  Mix (chicken, egg, tuna) with mayo, mustard, diced pickles, salt, pepper, and celery seed to taste.  Serve cold.  Sometimes I add pickled veggies other than pickled cucumber.  Pasta salad is easy with leftover veggies (squash!) or meat from a grilled kabob mixed with a box of cooked rotini, cubes of cheese, olives or pickled veg (mushrooms, carrots, celery, okra, etc), and Italian salad dressing.  Sometimes I add peperoni.  

 

3.  Put the crockpot on the deck table and plug it in outside.  

 

4.  Sandwiches.  Bread or tortillas if you can have them with whatever filling.  I can't have the bread so I use tomato slices as the 'bread'.  Lettuce, giant bell pepper halves, or cucumbers sliced longways also work well as the bread.  Sometimes I just roll up meat and cheese together too, I usually do it plain but you can add cream cheese.  Serve with chips and carrots or fruit salad.  

 

5.  The microwave is your friend.  If you must have something hot for 1 or two people, ask yourself can I microwave this?

 

6.  Once a week is charcuterie night.   We have a meat and cheese board with whatever salami, lunchmeat, or cold cooked meat we have available along with slices or cubes of whatever cheese we have.  Its served with various pickles, fruit, fancy mustard, and whatever bread/crackers I have that week.   Often I serve it with cookies or leftover sweets from earlier in the week.  

Edited by euphrasyne
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I’ve been using the air fryer because it doesn’t give off a lot of heat.  The stove fan is sufficient enough to keep it from heating the kitchen. That has given us a variety of options.  :thumbs:
 

Sandwiches, from sliced frozen meats, cooking later, vacuum sealing meal sized dinners, and cooking outside. 
 

 

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Oh, and I’m using the pressure cooker.  A fraction of the time to cook.  
 

My Mother’s potato salad:
 

Boil eggs, 2-3 for 2 potatoes, save the water, water rationing, to boil the potatoes. The batch I make, 4-5 eggs.

 

Diced, then, boil the potatoes, as much as you want to make. 1 potato, two potatoes 3 potatoes or more.  :happy0203:  I use about 4 -5 cups of diced potatoes.

 

Remove the yoke into a bowl, dice/slice the whites into the drained, cooled taters.

 

Smash yolks with a fork.  Add, same portions of, catsup, mustard, mayo and dill relish.  DH likes double the mustard and dill.  Mix and add to potatoes.  Let cool & set in the frig.  TaDa!  

 

 

 

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Hard for me to do some of the things mentioned with DH's severe restriction on salt. But we have been able to not use the oven and was using the grill but now have to go buy parts. 2 of the burners are out and need replacing. I will have to take care of that as soon as the car is fixed. So the microwave is my friend right now.  The barbeque I canned a few days ago was dinner tonight. Just heat it up in microwave. Had some unsalted fries also in air frier. The barbeque turned out great like we had just made it. So I will be canning it again in near future.  Fast dinner and easy clean up. Tomorrow will be salad and not sure what else yet.

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On 7/31/2020 at 5:23 PM, Annarchy said:

make “Angel” eggs

 

I had a friend who called them that too.  :lol: 

 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deviled#synonyms

 

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

alternate spelling:  deviled or devilled; deviling or devilling

transitive verb

1 : to season highly ...as in:  deviled eggs

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

 

MtRider  :cook:    

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I also use a LOT more cottage cheese this time of year....add to mac & cheese for "two cheese" version; to mac salad to power boost the protein; over toast sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar (a very old Weight Watchers recipe) for breakfast; stuffed into baked potatoes; made into mock sour cream;  mashed with yolks for deviled eggs; mixed with some pineapple; in the center of a 'flower sliced' tomato (my moms favorite diet lunch);  etc, etc, etc.  Quick, lowfat (if you buy it that way), protein packed, and COLD.  i even sprinkle on some Mrs Dash garlic & herb salt free blend and it tastes like ranch cottage cheese to me.    To think, I used to hate the stuff!  

 

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