Summer Recipies: Beat the Heat
Kimberly Rae Miller

I love eating, but sometimes I hate eating, like when it’s hot and muggy.

There are moments when I feel like it’s too hot to eat, or feel like standing over a stove would kill me all over-dramatic-Shakespearean style.  I can of course rationalize ice-cream as a completely well balanced meal with protein, fat and carbohydrates, but alack, I know better.  There’s only so much yogurt, sherbert, and fruit salad I can eat so out of necessity I came up with some non to minimally cooked foods to keep me fed in the summer months.

• Homemade Sushi
  I’m going to say that I would not trust myself with raw fish preparation, but there are other options such as smoked salmon, lump crab you can buy pre-prepared, and vegetarian rolls. You do have to cook rice, but for the most part, sushi is easy to make, just combine seaweed, rice and filling of choice to make a handy-dandy homemade sushi roll.
• Couscous Salad
  Couscous is my favorite thing ever because it cooks in less than 5 minutes. If you can boil water, you can make couscous. Ahhh, glorious grains. I treat it just like pasta in a pasta salad, mixing whole wheat couscous with drained chickpeas, tomatoes, peppers, onions, pine nuts, a little olive oil and some fresh herbs from the garden. Voila a well balanced meal.
• Cold Soup
  I was a cold soup hold out for a long time, but I have to say, I’m totally a convert now. If you have a blender, a refrigerator, or live in an igloo, you can have soup. All sorts of soup: melon soup, gazpacho, cucumber soup.
• Ceviche
  Basically a raw seafood salad. Okay, so I said I didn’t trust myself with raw fish preparation, but the fish in ceviche is cooked by the acidity of the limes, making it not quite so scary to eat. Plus, it just sounds impressive.

Oh, and there are salads and sandwiches and smoothies and all sorts of no-cooking-necessary foods to keep you cool in the summer months, but a New Yorker cannot live on lettuce alone.