Oh, what to make for dinner?

Every summer I have the same problem: it's too hot to cook, but we still have to eat. Currently, my kitchen is already so hot, that if I were to turn the oven on, it very possibly would cook me as well as my food. So here's my question, what do I make for dinner when I'm tempted to simply put an assortment of cereal on the table and say "have at it!"?

Sure, we could always go get pizza...

... but obviously, we do that a lot.

As I grumbled and sighed and tried to come up with a non-life threatening menu, I realized I'm probably not the only person who is having this dilemma. Then I thought, maybe those people might take comfort, not only in my similar struggle, but in using my ideas. So here you go, here's what I've come up with so far.

Day 1: Bacon-onion grilled cheese and cold tomato soup.

Grilled cheese: Cook bacon until crisp, drain; fry thinly sliced onions in leftover bacon grease. To put sandwiches together, layer cheese (I used pepper jack, yummy and spicy), bacon, and onions, butter outside of the bread and cook in a frying pan. The recipe I based this off told me to use mustard inside the sandwiches, but Tim didn't like it. So sauce, no sauce, it's your choice, I'm sure it's good without, too.

Soup: I was short on time, so I made just a can of tomato soup, but once it was hot, I stirred in a couple spoonfuls of sour cream, some milk, and a couple ice cubes to make it cold.

Day 2: BBQed pizzas and Tuscan Bread Salad

Pizza: I'll admit, I finally gave up trying to use the Italian ladies' pizza dough recipe and I've been using a mix. But this time I thought I'd try my mom's recipe because my VERY warm kitchen is a perfect environment for rising dough. It worked! Then I divided the dough into 8 parts, brushed then with olive oil and put them on pieces of foil on the grill until they baked enough so they wouldn't fall through the cracks. After the dough was cooked (about 10 minutes or so), I put on seasoned tomato sauce, assorted veggies, salame, and cheese, and put them back on the grill for about another 10 minutes until the cheese melted. They had a nice charcoal-y flavor.

Salad: I found this in a magazine: Chop leftover, slightly stale French bread into chunks. Then chop tomatoes, cucumbers, and olives and add all of it to a large bowl. (It said to use cheese, too, but I didn't have any and it was good without it.) Then sprinkle with salt and pepper and give it a good drizzle of olive oil, mix and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Day 3: Pasta with vegetables and sausage

I had some leftover pasta fresca (fresh pasta) in the fridge that needed to be eaten. Darn it. While it cooked, I cut up sweet red onions from my "garden", zucchini, red bell pepper, and mushrooms and cooked them in some olive oil and spices (it was a mix, but basil, parsley, oregano, and red pepper flakes would do). I chopped the sausage and added that. Once everything was all cooked, the veggies went on top of the pasta with some fresh tomatoes and basil.



Hope this helps! Also, other ideas are welcome.

Buon appetito!