It’s Too Hot To Cook

This summer has been hot. Like, really hot. And there have been way too many nights that have been too hot to cook. Despite the heat, you still want to eat well. Going out to eat or ordering take-out can get very expensive and the food is rarely as good for you as you would like it to be. And unfortunately, not everyone has the opportunity to barbecue. So then, is the only solution to turn the oven on and spend the rest of the night melting in the unbearable heat? Not necessarily.

I was kind of a weird kid.

I was kind of a weird kid. For breakfast, I always preferred leftovers from the night before. This was especially true if we had eaten chicken for dinner, but anything would do. I would never reheat anything opting to eat the leftovers cold. More often than not they were just as good cold as they were hot. Why am I telling you this? Becuase, you can harness the power of leftovers to eat good food and beat the heat. Say what?

…the heat doesn’t really kick in until 10 or 11 am.

More often than not the heat doesn’t really kick in until 10 or 11 am. What I suggest is that you cook before this. To be even more efficient do a little bit of prep the night before. Let’s say you have a whole chicken that you want to roast. Before you go to bed rub it down with herbs and spices and put it in a roasting dish in your fridge. When you wake up in the morning, turn your oven on, let it preheat and then pop the chicken in. It’s going to take between one hour to one and a half hours depending on the size of the chicken. During that time you could be getting ready for work, getting the kids up and ready, whatever the case may be.

Give yourself enough time in the morning…

Give yourself enough time in the morning so that the chicken can rest at room temperature for at least half an hour after it’s cooked. This will drop the temperature enough that it isn’t going to raise the temperature of your fridge too drastically. Just before you leave for the day put the chicken in the fridge and when you get home all you need to do is make a salad or something like that.

There are loads of things that you can cook in the morning

There are loads of things that you can cook in the morning and eat when you get home. You could boil potatoes and eggs and have them ready in the fridge to make potato salad when you get home. You could cook asparagus and serve it cold with a vinaigrette or a mayonnaise-based dressing. You could cook salmon and eat that cold as is or in a salad. Roasts like beef or pork work well also. You can slice them and eat them with cold sides or make fun sandwiches.

There really is no limit to what you can cook in the morning and then serve cold in the evening. And, this is a great way to eat well, eat home cooked food, and not melt like an ice cream in the hot sun.