No cook, cold summer dinners

Shanny

I'm so over cooking in the heat! Even on the nights I'm sucking it up and cooking neither of us is very interested in the hot food. So this resulting in a lot of wasted food or cereal nights (fun with a kid who can't have oats or rice by the way).

So throw out some of your favorite no cook dinner solutions please. I'll throw raw fruits and veggies on the side of just about anything to turn it into a meal! Obviously, we do salads, sandwiches and the like. Just looking for options I hadn't considered yet. TIA!

fisch

We do picnic snack plates for dinner on days like that. Our kids like cucumbers and tomatoes so I make that salad a lot. Sometimes we will add a micro-waved "cheesy" which is basically a quesadilla. Cheese, salami, crackers and olives are a favorite for all of us too. Creative yogurt parfaits are super fun too. Lots of French and sour dough bread with butter. I sometimes buy the pre made pizza focaccia bread at the gourmet grocer and we eat that cold with salad.

babybaby

we do no-cook burrito-type thingies by putting black beans on corn tortillas, adding sour cream, corn, pico de gallo, shredded cheese, salsa, avocado and whatever else. none of it has to be cooked. just open cans, jars, tubs and pile everything on.

coryandamanda

Cold pasta salads. Favs in our house are elbow macaroni with tuna, mayo and celery pieces and then tri color rotini with chunks of cheese, meats, veggies and red wine vinegar salad dressing.

Ronna71

You can also heat up a quesadilla very quickly in a skillet with a little olive oil spray - it only takes a few minutes and it doesn't heat up the house (I like the taste better than microwaved, but that is of course an option). Pasta salad with cubed salami or ham, macaroni salad with hard cooked eggs, mayo and celery (add diced onion if you like - I don't care for raw onion, myself). I have been trying to focus on nitrate free lunch meats with cheese, fruits and veggies (although my daughter regrettably refuses most veggies, but I am ever hopeful). Sushi! Soup heats up very quickly, so it doesn't really heat up the house. Cheese, crackers, and cold cuts. Hummus and veggies. Hard boiled eggs with whatever (and easy to cook 1-2 dozens in advance). Tuna salad (and of course, tuna sandwiches), fun bento style meals (I bought some bento boxes for kids recently to have some fun with this). In fact, you could make up 2-3 days of bento meals in advance. Perhaps some of the bento ideas you have to cook in advance but ultimately you eat cold and it might provide several servings. I was going to attach a link as an idea, but there are so many links for this if you do a google search, that I decided against it. :-) Shrimp and cocktail sauce served with whatever you like.

Well, I am sure there are a lot more great ideas, but that's all I can come up with from the top of my head. :-) have fun coming up with good ideas!

Kari

Rolled-up deli meat, cheese cut into "sticks," crackers, and cold fruit/veggies on the side is a favorite around here. Another cold meal that does require stove-top work is teriyaki spaghetti with chicken. I cook spaghetti in the morning, cool it down in the fridge, add some stir-fry sauce to it, and put in chunks of chicken (I cook a chicken once a week, then chop it up and freeze it until I'm ready to use for soups, sandwiches, quesadillas, and sides later in the week). Chicken wrap (using same chicken) with mayo and dried cranberries or diced red grapes, honey, and bacon.

I try to have one day a week that I turn on the oven for several hours and do all my baking, then shut it off and freeze/refrigerate everything to use later in the week. Also, the crock pot doesn't heat up the house as much, so you can cook a chicken overnight in it and not have a steamy kitchen all day.

ETA: Yogurt parfait. Have a build-your-own yogurt bar with different fruit, granola, and nuts.

blkbrd3

Peanut butter and jelly cracker sandwiches area a hit at my house. Tuna salad in an avocado bowl. Flatbread with cucumber and green onion dip and veggies.

I like making a fun "pasta" by peeling cucumbers and carrots into thin strips. Add halves of cherry or pear tomatoes and mozzarella slices. Toss with basalmic vinegar. Season as desired.

Finally I picked up a cook book dedicated to salads. It's been fun exploring salads that are more than the normal garden variety.

MNmommas

Oh this thread is making me so hungry!

I just wanted to second the crock pot idea, we use our crock pot all the time in the summer! Was wary of the glazed ceramic of a typical crockpot leaching lead into the food, so I did some research last year & got this one: http://www.amazon.com/360-Cookware-ID004-GC-Gourmet-4-Quart/dp/B00DG08KJO/ref=sr_1_1?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1404624388&sr=1-1&keywords=slow+cookers+and+crock+pots and love, love, LOVE it. Since it's stainless steel, it can be reheated on the stovetop too, which makes it easy to take along to BBQs.

Zen

I'm not very creative here. My go-to dinners for Shiloh are some kind of protein (eggs, cold chicken, lunch meats, yogurt) along with 2+ servings of raw fruits and veggies (strawberries, grapes, apples, pears, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrot coins). She'll eat cheese all day long if I let her so that's a staple in her diet too. She refuses to eat the usual carbs (rice, potatoes, pasta) but makes up for it with portioned snacks (chips, mini-muffins, etc).

Shanny

Thanks for all of the ideas. Many of them we already do, I'm still glad for the validation that I am not the only person that considers some of these things a "meal"

We have a couple other issues at play here: my house is really warm and I am too cheap to crank the air so we don't even feel like eating anything warm most of the time, Kate's allergies, she doesn't like foods put together so the crock pot is pretty useless same for things like yogurt parfait etc and she generally doesn't like "kid food" (your basic cheese quesadilla etc). Top it off with not owning a microwave and I am really running out of ideas. Thanks for the suggestions we will be trying several this summer for sure!

K&H

Spanish tapas. Stuffed olives, cold meat, cheese, etc, all served on sticks!
Greek platter. Hummus, grape leaves, olives (guess what is E's fave food?), cucumber tatziki etc