I don't know about you, but we're not even out of June, yet, and the heat is a problem for me. Fortunately, I baked 4 loaves of bread last week, and we still have 2 loaves left. No heating up the kitchen for next few days, I'm afraid.
Cold suppers are it for us, for now.
So, Thursday evening, I got together with my think-tank (my two daughters) and we brainstormed what dinner on the hot evenings should be. One of them suggested ham sandwiches, and the menu morphed from there. Here's Friday's cold supper.
Friday's dinner
- Ham and cheese sandwiches, on whole wheat, spread with mock pesto
- Seasoned, oven-roasted tomatoes topping a bed of lettuce and spinach
- Fresh cherries
- milk, iced tea and ice water to drink (our ice maker is working overtime)
Mock Pesto
Our basil looks pretty great, this year. In cooler summers, I've had straggly-looking stands of basil. Not so, this year! I've been using it to make a mock pesto, to top baked chicken and spread on sandwiches.
I use a couple of large handfuls of fresh basil leaves, garlic powder, salt and pepper, oil and pizza cheese (a blend of mozzarella and provolone), whirred together in the food processor. If I had Parmesan cheese and pine nuts, that would be wonderful. But really, this tastes pretty amazing, with all of the basil. And it's definitely a "more is more" condiment. The more I spread on an item, the more delicious said item is!
An Easy-day Salad
For the salad, I roasted the canned tomatoes in the early morning hours, in our counter-top, toaster oven (to reduce the heat-up of the kitchen). (See this post for instructions on oven-roasting canned tomatoes). When cooled, I cut each tomato half into strips, coated with more oil, dried oregano, a bit of vinegar, salt and garlic powder. Then chilled the whole bowlful for the day. At serving time, I spooned the roasted tomatoes over beds of garden greens. And that was the most cooking I did all day.
In this heat, I can only do so much physical activity. On Friday, I did my gardening as early in the day as I could. I had the day's cherries picked by 9 AM. Then I used some of the rest of my time to set up July's budget, take care of Monday's bill paying in advance and do some menu planning for this week. At that point, I was worn out from the heat. A tall glass of iced tea and a chair on the deck were about all I could take.
How about you? How do you handle summer's warmer days? What are your favorite no-cook dinners?
