Here are some tips to help you feel good all over when the weather is closing in, the sun is pouring in but you need to cook. We know how this feels and that it’s important that you feel cool in the kitchen – in more ways than one!
We don’t suggest you climb into the fridge or freezer.
Nor do we suggest that you bash out a wall – in fact it would be better to close your blinds and stop the sun streaming in when you cook.
What we can do is offer up these top 6 tips …
- Make cold food – the type of food that requires very little cooking. Think salads, sandwiches, platters of cold cuts, chopped vegetables, lettuce cups of chicken salad, tuna salad, shrimp salad, ham salad. All of them can be heavy on the tomatoes of course!
- Make low cook dishes. These are the types of dishes where you only need to cook one element and can create a whole meal without much effort. Pasta salad, rice salad, couscous, potato salad, steak ‘n’ salad, tacos. Add your juicy tomatoes for colour, texture and flavour too!
- Prep for your meal in advance. Ideally work out what you would like to cook and pull out all the ingredients. Make sure you have everything and prepare by chopping and measuring out. This will mean you will likely spend less time hanging in front of a hot oven, grill or hotplate as you hastily chop something or search for a missing ingredient whilst stirring over a stove!
- Use a minor appliance. Now not that I would suggest the Thermomix is minor when it comes to cost – but it sure does help to keep the kitchen cook in the Summer months – allowing you to cook a warm meal without heating up the surrounds! More economic options are the microwave, the airfryer, the benchtop oven or the pressure cooker (the later at least reduces the time required for cooking something)
- Buy in a portion of the meal. Grab a loaf of bread and save baking it yourself to winter months. Pick up cooked chicken or shrimp and make a protein rich salad without needing to cook at all.
- Choose your time of day. If you have time, then cook what you need to earlier or later in the day. If you can bulk cook, then this will allow you to cook for several meals at once – alleviating the need to start again every time. Store prepared foods in the fridge or freezer and simply grab them as required to pull together your next dish.
Cool in the kitchen: Recipes to try out
We have a load of recipe ideas in our free downloadable e-books.
And here are some extra ideas for you we found online
