Beat the Heat Cooking

Cool food isn’t about what is trendy.  It is really about what to cook at home when you could just as soon sear steaks on the patio.  Grill notwithstanding.   Here are some of my top picks for eating in the heat.

Skip meals.  I’m down to about one a day.  I just don’t want to eat in this weather and the effort necessary is greater than caloric return so…

Eggs.  Eggs are great summer food.  Simple fried eggs cook up fast and won’t heat your whole house.  They are light but satiating.  Next, up the ante by making an omelet.  Again, they are fast and nutritious and infinitely variable.  Moreover, they make a great summer dinner along with a salad or chilled soup or other home garden bounty.  Hardboiled eggs are a summertime workhorse.  Cook off a few dozen, refrigerate and use as needed.  Not only do they make a great snack to facilitate your meal skipping habit, but they fall into line easily in an antipasto platter of chilled and pickled vegetables and some charcuterie and cheese, or in a chef style salad. Last, but certainly not least, is egg salad.  We are junkies for the stuff and once it is made will eat it pretty much nonstop until it is gone.  For a real treat pick up some Alkayam whole wheat pita - the large thin ones.  Toast them quick, place egg salad, greens, tomato, bacon, etc. on one side of the circle, fold the whole thing over like a taco and discover what pita is all about.  This technique also rocks with grilled sausage, roasted red pepper, and pesto.

Hot Smoked Salmon "Mango Style"

Salads. First, pick up some Blue Moon mix and then add everything you have on hand and make giant, hearty, chef salads.  I really love salads with beans in them and lentils, garbanzos, and kidney beans are my top choices.  You can certainly use canned beans.  I always have some on hand for occasions like this. Hard boiled eggs are great additions to your supper salads adding protein and a lustrousness as the yolk portion mixes with the dressing and coats the greens.  Also consider poached or over-easy eggs.  The broken yolks on the greens is not just good.  It's kinda sexy.  Another great addition is sardines.  Our boys just DEVOUR these rich little fishes and they are packed with everything good for your body, limited in those that aren’t, and considered to be sustainably harvested.  First timer?  Try The King Oscar brand Bristling Sardines in oil. They are Grade A, but the Brunswick ones work fine too.  Specialty markets carry these great little smoked sprats from Russia in a round can.  They are black and gold and lightly smoky.  Just smashing with a salad.  Other smoked fish is good too and I recommend trying your hand at hot smoking some wild salmon on a grill if you have one. You can do enough to make it worthwhile and the refrigerate the rest for 2 weeks, or freeze it.  Cheeses are great contributors too: blue, chevre, Gorgonzola, cottage, farmer – whatever you have.  The only limit on salads is what you need to use up in the fridge.  Consider the greens a canvas and remember a good oil and vinegar dressing is often best.  Ditch tht corn syrup slurry ASAP.



Marinated Farmer Cheese
 and Minted Snap Peas

Beans and Rice.  Cook off a bunch all at once and use it throughout the week.  This will serve you well when your brain is a melted puddle and you can’t think what to make for dinner - you already have a step in the right direction.  Having these foods on hand will save you time and heat during the prep.  Together both make quick burritos or tacos. Thgey also make a nice stuffing for eggplants or summer squash.  Beans alone make fast soups (Recipe: black beans and their cooking broth, yogurt, diced red onion, diced cucumber, diced tomato, minced garlic.  Mix all in a bowl.  Season. Viola: Chilled Black Bean Soup), are a great fortifier for salads, easy to serve with eggs (huevos rancheros).  Beans also make hummous which is a great hot weather food.  Let there be no mystery as to why it came from the Mid-East and not, say, Norway.  Now, if you firmly believe dinner needs, must-be a heated affair, make some fried rice - a dish invented from cold, leftover rice.  Add 1# of the Moore’s ground pork along with some good soy sauce, chili paste, and a little brown sugar for a real smash.

Marinated Grilled Zukes and
Half Sour Pckles in an Antipasto

Whole Meat Roasts.  Yep that’s right.  Nothing says deep summer heat like roasting a turkey, whole bone in rib roast or better yet a ham, does it?  Consider it an investment.  Pick one day to heat up the house, cook up a big piece of animal and then eat beautiful, beautiful cold cuts all week long: sandwiches, chef salads, mayo based salads, in antipasto’s (starting to see how these all fit together?), or just standing there, right off the bone, with the fridge door open.  Also consider brisket, pork loin, top sirloin, and whole chickens.  Some of these you can do on a grill too. thus sparing your home the hot oven treatment.  What about fish?  OK here’s a trade secret: Take a whole side of wild salmon (that farmed stuff at the supermarket is shit, and don’t believe otherwise).  Lay it skin side down on a sheet tray.  Brush lightly with melted butter.  Add salt and pepper.  Bake at 325° for about 1 hour, or until the thickest flesh is firmed.  Cool.  You now have the best ‘poached’ salmon ever.  Those fish shaped boilers are for suckers.  Serve this fish with a yogurt/cucumber/ mint sauce and some white wine.  

 Suddenly, hot summer nights ain’t so bad.