Cooking cool when it's HOT outside!

[MacMomma]

I thought that since temps are starting to warm up (over 100 all week!) we could share dinner ideas to keep it cool in the house. My ideas so far:
Chicken/egg/tuna salad sandwiches
Salad-for-dinner
Using the grill
Using crockpot but having it in garage so it doesn't heat up the house.

[ittybittycoconuts]

I live in hawaii so warm-hot year round with no ac. My tips are to bake in a convection toaster oven outside and/or do all your baking at one time in the late evening. I usually prep everything in order of bake and rise times. I make my bread dough let rise then turn on the oven, prep my muffins or whatever else while it preheats, bake the muffins then by that time the bread is in the loaf pan and the final rise is done and ready to go in.

Pizza on the grill(indiv. size is easiest)

some meals we do a fridge buffet if its too hot to care about cooking. Usually cheese, crackers, deli meat, salami, whatever fruit, veggie sticks, dip, chips and salsa, leftovers, salad. Pretty much whatever we can just eat. This is often what we do for lunch since its the hottest time of day any no one feels like heavy food.

Dinner we grill a ton or I plan very quick stirfry dishes. We do a very asian inspired diet and the focus is quick cooking, veggie heavy meals that are lite. Plus I wont lie its fun to eat with chop sticks. The basics are cutting everything into thin bite size pieces so they cook very quickly. It doesnt heat the house up much at all and I use a heavy cast iron sklillet so the fan going in the kitchen doesnt cool the pan. I can have dinner done in 20 minutes including prep.

[ittybittycoconuts]

I forgot you can do meal in a crock pot too. put your meat on bottom porkchops with mushroom sauce, chicken thighs with sweet n sour or a london broil with gravy all work well, baked potatoes wrapped well in foil(seam side up so the meat juice wont leak in) on top then wrap corn on the cob in foil on top of that. I can fit dinner for 4 in my 6qt. Low all day and everything is perfect by dinner.

[MacMomma]

Oh pizza on the grill sounds like a neat idea! Hadn't thought of that before.

[DottieHarley]

It's going to be around 100 this weekend, ugh. We do a lot of grilling outside, and salads with leftover grilled meat and veg.
We use flatbreads (or homemade tortillas) for grilled pizza, another favorite.
Monday night (after DD was in bed) I stuck a chicken in the oven... let it cook while I did chores and then ate the wings before bed Cold leftover chicken for dinner last night and no heating up the house!
But our favorite hot-weather, mom-and-dad-are-too-tired-to-cook dinner is... cheese, crackers, and fruit!

[danner]

I usually don't mind a bit of heat in the kitchen as long as what I eat isn't super hot. I recently made a delicious and unusual salad:

Quinoa cooled down a bit, goat cheese, fresh cooked corn off the cob, bacon crumbles and arugala mixed just a bit.

It's perfect. The goat cheese is tangy, the bacon is smoky, the corn is juicy and sweet and the arugala is just a tiny bit spicy. We all love it on a hot night.

[Cleokatrah]

Can you afford to buy an induction burner (and pot/skillet if you need one)? the space we're living in right now is tiny and I have to unplug the AC unit to cook. The skillet I was using was baking us so I gave in to a NuWave infomercial and bought their burner and cookware set. It barely gives off heat, so I love it. I just wish i had another one...

[carriecook'n'sew]

grilled pizza is super delicious. I'm working on 2 asian salads for a party on sunday, both would be great hot weather meals with chicken or something on em.

Napa Cabbage salad with sesame soy dressing and crunchy noodles

Cold Noodle salad with peanut sauce and asian veggies

Only cooking is boiling the noodles

[babybean#5]

I love tabouli for a quick summer meal!

[MacMomma]

I wish we could afford an induction burner, but we are on a financial lockdown at the moment due to hubby losing his second (pt) job

I have started using my toaster oven though. It gives off so much less heat - why haven't I used this more already ?!