Summer food

[Treeb]

Inspire me please! What are your favorite meals for hot weather? I'm trying to think of things that avoid using the oven, if possible. Quick/easy meals are appreciated too. Can use the crock pot, but a lot of recipes for that seem to be very "heavy" foods better suited to cooler weather.

Ideas?

[StJuniper]

I'd say barbecue, but around here at least, it's too stupid-hot to barbecue. Yesterday I did a sort of assemble your own salad with chunks of cucumber/tomato/pepper/red onion, boiled eggs, olive oil/vinegar/salt/pepper, and then bread and tzatziki. Buy a roast chicken at the grocery store and eat it cold with a garden salad? Mexican food feels nice and fresh in this kind of weather...

[qbm]

We make a really nice Mexican bread salad.

I posted the recipe before so was going to copy and paste it but the whole thread might be helpful to you so here it is...

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=43866&hilit=+Mexican

Struggling to link on my phone so let me know if the link doesn't work.

[Kitcameron]

When I was younger we'd often have cold cooked meats with salad and boiled potatoes, boiled eggs or maybe Scotch egg. DH isn't into salad or skin on potatoes at all so we don't have it now and I do miss it when it's hot. Think the girls would like it too as they could just pick and choose what they wanted. Maybe I could try it again this year and give them chips instead lol.

[Kanga]

We often do that too kc. Or I make a pasta salad, a rice salad, some cous cous & a green salad then we can just choose what we want. My lot love tuna pasta salad.

It dh & I like a quiche or onion tart with salad but the children aren't as keen!

[Ali70]

We like salad with lots of bits too - chicken drumsticks, mini corn on the cob, ham, cheese, pork pie, coleslaw, new potatoes, garlic bread (not all at once, just a selection of)

Sproglet's absolute favourite is cold pasta salad with pesto, prawns, diced cucumber, finely sliced spring onion and tinned sweet corn. Its nice with diced peppers in too but she picks every single on out so I've given up putting them in.

[Treeb]

We do make-your-own salads now and then, but I should definitely put it on the menu more often. You all have given me some ideas for new "bits" to incorporate which is great since ours always seem a bit boring.

Quiche is a great idea for me and dh. A has an egg allergy and L usually won't eat eggs either though, so they'd have to have something else.

The Mexican bread salad looks delicious and, but I'm the only one here who eats tomatoes of avocadoes! I may have to make it for lunches or something, though.

Do you use some type of dressing on your pasta salad, Ali?

[Ali70]

[Treeb]

Sounds yummy. I think I see a pasta salad coming up in our near future!

[SusanMcGee]

Mango Rice (Mangai Sadam)
Cook 1 cup of Rice.
Cut a small piece of ginger and 2 green chilies (chillies) into very small pieces.
Peel and grate a raw mango.
Fry 1/4 Cup of Peanuts(ground nuts) for about one minute, by using 2 tsp Oil,1 tsp Mustard seeds and fresh Curry leaves.
Add ginger, green chilies and grated mangoes.
Stir, till the mango gets cooked.
Remove from flame.
Mix with rice and Salt

[StJuniper]

I made a half recipe of this yesterday and it was lovely. http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/my_m ... ever_ever/

I skipped the hot peppers and Nappa cabbage, and only used orange peppers...

[LucyLastic]

Crikey, I have never seen such a LONG recipe before! I am actually half-watching an episode of The Pioneer Woman at this very minute (never have I seen a cooking programme with so much footage of tractors!) and she has just demonstrated how to make a salad (sliced lettuce, sliced cucumber, grated carrot and grated cheese!). The dressing does sound amazing, though (garlic, chopped parsley, basil and chives, mayo, sour cream, worcestershire sauce, cayenne, paprika, parmesan). The dressing in your recipe also sounds delicious, SJ. But no wonder you only made half - I mean, three cucumbers?!

[StJuniper]

Yeah, The Pioneer Woman's endless pre-recipe ramblings annoy me, but if you scroll to the bottom there's a succinct version!

[EnigmaFish]

Ergh, Foodporn Blogs annoy me. Either do photography, or do cooking. Don't try to combine both into one page! I just want to read your stupid recipe.
Crap, now you're all going to tell me you have Foodporn Blogs.

[LucyLastic]

I definitely do not have a Foodpornblog. But I would like a lovely searchable database of all of my recipe books indexes by ingredient, style, genre, etc. I always end up just googling rather than looking in my books. Turns out 'eat your books' has already cornered that market, but costing more than I am willing to pay ( i.e. anything). I could set it up in Excel or Access. But I just can't be bothered