Cold recipes for hot weather

[rachelmanija]

It is horrendously hot here in LA, so I've been puttering around the kitchen putting together salads and composed salads. Yesterday I came up with an extra-delicious white bean/arugula/salmon salad.

Rinse a can of white beans. Toss with a little chopped onion, salt and pepper, chopped parsley, flaked smoked salmon (not the lox type), and some good balsamic vinegar. (Don't skip the balsamic. I initially used lemon juice, but the balsamic takes it from "okay I guess" (lemon juice) to "I think I'll make this again tomorrow.")

Toss arugula, kale or baby kale, or other raw bitter-ish green of your choice with olive oil and more balsamic.

Boil an egg to the point where the yolk is still somewhat soft. Slice it in half, sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Put some of the white bean salad on top of the greens. Put the sliced, still-warm egg on top of that. Enjoy.

What are your favorite "too hot to cook" recipes?

Comments

[tibicina]

There's an extremely midwest macaroni salad that I sometimes do, but it involves cooking pasta late the night before you want to serve it and mixing it up then and letting it sit overnight, but then is served cold.

Cooked small macaroni (mother's rings if you can find them, salad macaroni will work, so will the little rings or stars you can find in Mexican markets)
Frozen peas
Canned tuna
Sharp cheddar cheese cut into cubes slightly larger than the peas
Sweet pickles (not bread and butter) diced a little smaller than the peas. juice reserved.

Mix mayonnaise and sweet pickle juice until it's liquid but will coat the back of a spoon such that drawing a line through with your finger it will more or less stay.

Cook the pasta, drain, add the frozen peas to help cool the pasta. Add all the other mix-in things except the cheese and toss with the dressing, by this time it should be cool enough to add the cheese without the cheese melting. toss, leave over night in refrigerator and serve cold.

Do not try to keep for more than about three days after the first day you serve it (something in the way the pickle juice, mayonnaise, and tuna interact starts going a little weird.)

***

I also do cold lentil salads and a buckwheat-quinoa salad which similarly are designed to be made the night before so you're doing your cooking when it's relatively cooler and then you serve them cold.