surviving the summer kitchen

so last week, as Ivan and I were sweating it out in our new charming house

(which has lots of charm.......but no air conditioning...)

I thought back to the challenge I had this last summer: how to cook in the hot Ohio weather. Before we moved here, I never thought much about summers in Ohio (I never thought much about Ohio, actually). If I had, I wouldn't have thought they were hot, hot like summers in Texas. "Hot Texas summers" just rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it? Well, surprise, surprise....summers can be stinkin' hot in Ohio as well.

And so we did two things to survive. The first was that Brett-the-eternal-expert-researcher got on-line and found us a window air conditioning unit on Craig's list. Me and Ivan, we loooooved that air conditioning unit. Oh yes we did. Loved. It.

but, as amazing as that little unit was, we had to help it out a bit. The second thing we did to survive was look for new recipes that wouldn't heat up the kitchen -- anything that wasn't soup, that didn't need to be grilled (i.e. broiled) and that didn't need to be baked. Ya'll know what I'm talking about, right??? And of course it couldn't just be pasta, or lovely creative salads, because now there are two of us, and one of us insists on more filling meals.

soooo, I e-mailed my sisters for suggestions, and some of them got back to me with some helpful ideas (I think the others were probably at the pool....trying to survive the summer in their own way, which maybe meant not cooking at all? maybe just eating sandwiches and pasta?smart, smart ladies). And then I pulled out my slow cooker, and looked for recipes that didn't taste worse for being cooked slowly, and I remembered that curry recipes can be made on the stove top, and that naan and pita bread don't always require an oven.

so there! take that, summer heat. Up next: Yogurt-marinated chicken
(see how generous I am?)

p.s. any suggestions? post them in the comments! or post them on your blog, leave me a link, and thanks for helping a sister out. my family will love you, especially come next summer.