Heather says:
It’s May and in my part of the US that means hot weather is settling in and getting comfortable until October.
It’s time to start thinking of ways to not use the oven and minimize the use of the stove. Grilling is my go-to, but I have been known to set the slow cooker or roaster oven out in the garage in an attempt to create a hot meal without overheating the kitchen.
Consider taking full advantage of the time you spend grilling by loading up the grill with many items instead of only the main course for one meal. Typically I like to grill extra chicken breasts, but bone-in chicken is great to grill and then pull apart or shred for items like chicken salad or additions to pastas. Experiment with lots of different marinades and rubs to keep variety in your meals, just remember if there is sugar in a marinade that the outside of the item will burn more quickly, always use indirect grilling with these items. Don’t forget foil packets are a great way to cook vegetables on the grill.
Random aside: At my pub job we call grilled wings “Nascar style” -translation “put tire [grill] marks on ’em”
When you DO choose to turn on the oven, fill it with as many items as possible. You’ll only heat up the kitchen once and can use the microwave to reheat -also remember somethings are even awesome cold, like leftover oven-fried chicken).
Remember that there can be a lot more to salad than lettuce and a couple of vegetables.
My current obsession? Caprese
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I find when the weather is hot, I’m much less likely to want carb heavy meals, unless a sandwich is involved. Cold soups like gazpacho also become incredibly appealing. Heck, I’ve been known to eat this for breakfast.
Smoothies are another cool addition or replacement for a simple meal.
How do you cope with summer heat in your kitchen?
@heathersolos Just cleaned our whole grill and replaces the flavorizer bars and grates. Such a difference!
Well, this is a timely post. Because of one of the oddities of our kitchen, I can not turn on the ceiling fan while I’m cooking on the stove top. Which makes our kitchen H-O-T when I need to cook. So I invested in two slow cooker cookbooks. We’ve been eating crock pot meals about 3 times a week so far.
We also grill everything we possibly can when we use the grill, in preparation for meals later that week. We’ll grill chicken and sausage and shrimp kabobs.
We’ve also started grilling fruit. We love grilled pineapple and our new favorite is grilled bananas. It sounds odd, but it is SO delicious. You take a semi green banana, and put it straight on the grill for 5 minutes, flip it, and grill for 5 minutes on the other side. It’s ready when the inside is tender and the skin is black. It’s fabulous.
@TheAmyTucker We re-ran your import for you homegirl, but we hit another empty comment! Any others in your database you know about/can find?
@JMattHicks Stupid entropy comments!
@JMattHicks Empty comments, even. 😀 Off to look.
@TheAmyTucker Let me know what you find and we’ll rerun it again!
@TheAmyTucker Drop us an e-mail when you’re done clearin’ ’em out, we’ll get ya squared away Amy!
@JMattHicks Is there a faster way for me to find empty comments other than going through them page by page? 😀
@TheAmyTucker Unfortunately, there isn’t. Do you have a lot of ’em?
@JMattHicks I haven’t found any yet and I got to page 100.
@TheAmyTucker Let’s try this, we’ll run this bad boy, see what it finds, and we’ll just cross that bridge as we get there. Dealio?
@JMattHicks The amount at which you rock knows no bounds.
I tried to grill some pork chops the other night and my gas grill just would not light. I could smell the gas so I know that tank isn’t empty – but even when I tried to light the burner with a match (carefully of course) it wouldn’t take. I need to dig out the owners manual and try to figure out what is wrong. I do have an electric grill in the kitchen that doesn’t seem to put out a lot of heat, but it’s only good for maybe one or two burgers. I did the 3 chops on it and they fit, but since one was a bit thicker than the others it took longer to cook so two ended up slightly overdone and a bit dry.
A couple years ago i bout a metal ‘grill pan’ from the local fancy hardware store. It is about the size of a mixing bowl but flatter and wider and has smalls holes in it. When I grill I will chop up some veggies (usually mushrooms and peppers), toss with olive oil and seasoning and then dump the whole mess into the pan and then just grill it alongside the meat.
We love to eat tortellini salad in the summer. it’s cold, got some veggies and capers tossed into it and it’s a very quick and easy lunch.
We live in an apartment now, so no grilling for us (except for on our grill pan)! 🙁 In the summer, I am a huge fan of roasting a chicken on Sunday and using the leftover cold shredded meat in salads throughout the rest of the week. It’s frugal, plus I have an excuse to keep the oven/stove off and save on our gas bill!