Favorite Hot Weather Meals

[GoingNuts]

When I was a kid we did not have air conditioning, and during the summer we ate lots of "dairy" meals that did not involve turning a burner on the stove.  Big salads, tuna salad or lox with bagels, and my very favorite - borscht (cold beet soup) with sour cream, pumpernickel bread and chopped vegetables.

OF course my family turns up their nose at all of these - not satisfying enough.    (Somehow my father whose job involved quite a bit of manual labor found these perfectly satisfying.  But I digress.)

Naturally our takeout options are very limited, so I'm looking for suggestions for satisfying dinners that won't heat up my kitchen.  I'm thinking maybe the crock pot?  But I associate that with heavier, fall and winter-friendly fare.

Help!

[GingerPye]

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[hedgehog]

How about heating the kitchen up only once or twice a week?  For example roast two chickens and bake a bunch of potatoes at one time.  Eat one chicken and some potatoes that day, but have the chicken on hand for another meal (hot or cold), use te potatoes for stuffing with all kinds of goodies for another meal.  Or do the ame with other kinds of meats that are good for more than one type of meal.

[GoingNuts]

That would be an awesome solution if anyone but me would eat leftover chicken, or potatoes.  (Have I mentioned that DH's side of the family clearly has a genetic defect because they hate potatoes?  And that he's passed this defective gene to my kids?)

But you did give me a great idea, which I've done before but was brain farting on.  I'll brave standing outside tonight and will grill a double batch of chicken breasts, and will disguise them thoroughly tomorrow for burritos or quesadillas.     IF I slather enough beans, cheese, tomatoes, chilis and salsa on them, they won't really notice it's leftover chicken.  And since we're never all home for dinner at the same time during the week, I can just use the toaster oven instead of having to use the real oven.

That takes care of Monday and Tuesday.  Wednesday will be some kind of grilled fish (please let it be cooler on Wednesday!), and Thursday I'll leave a prepared spinach  lasagna for them to bake while I'm at work.  Since they're so fussy, they can deal with the hot kitchen, LOL.

But I still want my cold borscht, LOL.  I may have to make some just for me.

[SilverLining]

We do the entire meal on the BBQ.  The only issue is if we want burgers or dogs, I have to do up buns ahead of time.

We do corn on the cob, potatoes (washed, sliced, partially cooked in micro) on the BBQ.

[GoingNuts]

I honestly don't even want to grill. No shade in the backyard. 

[hedgehog]

Oh, I knew someone here had a family that doesn't eat potatoes, but forgot who.  Weirdos. 

I did mean for the chicken to not be so much "leftovers" as used in a recipe that begins with cooked chicken (there are whole cookbooks based on what you can do with rotisserie chicken).  Many of them don't need to be cooked so much as heated, so it might not heat up the kitchen so much.

You could do pulled pork in the crock pot.  Serve with rolls, cole slaw, fresh fruit.  I think it was Mary who started a pulled pork thread recently? 

[GoingNuts]

Yes, I was eying that for next week. Yummmm.

[nameless]

You can do sloppy joes or dynamites in the crock pot too - simmers/cooks all day long. you can also do chicken to later shred into salad, fajitas, burritos, etc.

Adrienne

[becca]

Omelettes?  They are so quick, and you can use a lot of veggies and some meats with them.  Are eggs ok?  Have with a salad?

[GoingNuts]

Yes, sometimes we do omelets. I'm a bit of an egg-oholic. 

Nameless, what is this dynamite you speak of?

[nameless]

Oh I'll find the recipe...it's a homemade sloppy-joe really. I think it's a central MA thing -- dynamites was the name on the recipe from my grandmother.

Now I'm thinking I'll bring my crockpot to the beach house to have something simmering all day for easy dinners!

(11 days and counting!)

Adrienne

[nameless]

a-ha! Rhode Island recipe!

These are close --

http://www.foxprovidence.com/dpp/rhode_show/rhode_show_cooking/rhode_show_cooking_dynamite_20090901

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/dynamite/

It would have to be tweaked for a crock pot, but otherwise - stove-top easy meal. I find doing stovetop things aren't as heat-producing (in the end) as a hot oven. I am also lucky to have my oven hood VENT TO OUTSIDE (how cool is THAT?!) and I run a table top fan in the kitchen too.

A

[hezzier]

Chef salad, pasta salad with vinaigrette dressing (not a mayo fan), cold bbq chicken...my favorite:  bread, wine and cheese, we've adapted it over the years to be safe crackers, specialty cheeses, cold meats and fruit.  We used to do a chinese chicken salad with mandarin oranges, but whatever dressing we used to use, DS can't have.  Wraps...this sounds good to me today, but we were just at the store and I didn't buy any so I guess that's out.

[nameless]

speaking of crockpot:

http://www.365daysofcrockpot.com/

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/

I am wondering if it does heat up the kitchen a bit though...

Adrienne