Ok, so hot weather with no AC is not a good time to use the stove or oven. Heat wave really started on Wednesday but Monday night I made a tomato and onion quiche which heated up the room.
Tuesday I made pasta carbonara with bacon and zucchini which also required standing over a hot stove.
Wednesday morning I realized that standing over the stove to cook pork chops was not going to be fun so I got out the crock pot and a crock pot cookbook. I couldn't find a recipe I liked so made up this one which was delicious.
Slice a large onion. Place several slices in bottom of crock pot. Lay on the boneless pork chops. salt and pepper and give them some sprinkles of hot sauce. Lay on rest of onion. Empty a can of cream of mushroom soup over it all and add 1/2 can of water too. Cook on low for 6 hours.
Pork chops were so tender and moist. Soup made a nice sauce. I did make rice, mushrooms, and steamed some spinach to go with meal. I didn't get as hot as the days before.
Thursday, another scorcher of a day I decided the stove was out for dinner. I looked for a gazpacho recipe instead. Found several and modified. Never made this before and I didn't have a blender having gotten rid of it when we downsized in 2016. Dan reminded me he did have a NutriBullet for smoothies so I used that making the soup in two batches. Traditionally this is red cold soup but mine was yellow from the yellow tomatoes I used.
Yellow tomatoes (I used one large and a pint of cherry sized)
1/2 green pepper
1/2 large zucchini
1/2 sweet onion
1 clove garlic
1 slice bread with crusts removed, soaked in water, squeezed and added to mix.
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoon white wine vinegar
chicken stock (I didn't measure because I had to add liquid to a line in the NutriBullet)
sprinkle cumin, rosemary, salt and pepper.
I cut everything fairly small so the NutriBullet didn't have to work very hard. It did a grand job.
I chilled it in a large mouthed jar in the freezer for 15-20 minutes then served it with sour cream that I thinned with milk. It was delicious. We had crusty bread and olive oil to dip it in as an accompaniment.
There is only a small amount left for one of us to have at a lunch time.
Tonight we are having chicken salad. The chicken breasts are simmering on the stove now. Another cold meal in this heat.
What are you cooking that's cool?
10 comments:
Your weekly meals sound delicious, Marcia. This week we had oven cooked chicken, which was cook once and eat 2 days. Another day was salad with added veggies and hard boiled eggs. Cold broccoli salad and salmon cooked in a small toaster oven was another meal.
That all sounds really good! (Letter posted this afternoon.)
...I'm grilling!
Everything sounds good, and a cool chef is also important. I remember the days before my family had ac, and when my mom actually was canning things in a kitchen...really hot! I'm grateful for ac now.
You have some wonderful meals. We have rain coming and I plan to cook a roast in the crockpot for one meal....maybe a pot of chili another day! Enjoy your afternoon!
Sue is pretty adamant about not using the stove in hot weather, and it has also been too hot to bbq. We ordered a pizza which did us for 2 days. I am now contemplating what to do tonight. A taco truck just opened around the corner. Maybe I'll try there. Maybe not. There are days when toast or cereal will do.
Hope you get that AC fixed. Sounds like you have some good summer meal ideas. We had street tacos (from Costco) last night. They are a family favorite and super quick and easy to warm up. I also make pasta and sauce earlier in the week, and we will have those leftovers tonight. Hope you have a good weekend. See you again soon.
In hot weather I'm good with salad or cheese and crackers. Raw veggies with ranch dip. I just got a heat pump, so now I have no excuse not to cook. (except that I live alone)
I live on salads for most of the summer, whether we have warm weather or not. And this year it's been mostly a "not".
We keep a small toaster oven to use in the sunroom for baking in this hot hot weather. Nothing big, but it will do half a pizza or a 6-muffin tray. Also use the crockpot out there where it doesn’t heat up the house. Have you tried avocado toast? One of our favorites for hot weather, and lots of salads.
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