Summer Meal Ideas - Colorado Springs,CO

I love Relish - a website you can subscribe to for meal ideas. I've made several items from the menus they provide on a weekly basis. They have a great variety and the website builds a grocery list for the meals you choose!! Go to relishrelish.com to see samples! They also give great pointers each week on different things - BBQing, fun cocktails and party ideas, etc. Hope you enjoy it!

I will be checking back to see what others have written. I'm at a loss, as well. These 90 + days have me not wanting to cook anything. We already eat sandwiches for lunch so can't do them again for dinner.

Wraps with ranch dressing or flavored mayo....haven't made any yet, but I'm planning on it

Cubed avocado with a little sweet onion, tomato and cucumber drizzled with a little rice wine vinegar and olive oil.

Gazpacho

I hate turning on the oven in the summer. I like a lot of salads in the summer, you can buy the pre packaged grilled chicken slices by the lunch meat for nice topping to your salad if veggies are not enough, also I like to use cut up ham on salads sometimes too. I like to make salmon patties and those are made on the stove top and don't require the oven turned on. I buy a lot of frozen salmon and tilapia that can be taken out a few fillets at a time and only require a few minutes on either side under the broiler ( thawed of course) lots of different marinades to use out there and served with a salad or rice is a yummy easy meal for two. My kids fave meal in the summer of all things is breakfast for dinner ( don't ask me why) I love love love BLT's in the summer = ) I am perfectly happy with a tomato hollowed out with tuna salad in it ( cold) yummy, refreshing! We do like tacos and nachos, especially enjoy seafood nachos from time to time. I like several recipe sites for new ideas, taste of home is a good one and I think the other one I use a lot is allrecipes.com, also kraft has a good one. Lots of luck, I like to browse recipe books for inspiration, you might want to check the library for recipes for two = )

I have started making chicken wraps. I marinate and then grill chicken breast. I wrap diced up chicken, tomatoes, cucumber, and some shredded cheese into a tortilla. My husband loves the chipotle mayo on these. They are very light but filling. You can play with the toppings too, maybe add some fresh onion, bell pepper or some olives.

Kraftfoods.com sends out 4 free magazines per year of free recipe ideas for the season. They are of course trying to sell you their products, but you can modify the recipes to fit what you like to eat. All of the recipes are easy to make. You go on their website and can sign up for the magazine or just look at the recipes online. I also love the tasteofhome magazines. They are put out seasonally and all the recipes are reader-submitted and are appropriate for the season.

It's all about the salad in our house over the summer. Right now, it's over 90 degrees in Kansas City and nothing hot sounds good, especially after a day at the pool!

We will chop up some romaine, add craisins, peal and chop up a bartlett pear, walnuts, feta/blue/goat cheese (pick one) and add some leftover cold chicken that has been grilled or baked . Drizzle with balsalmic vinegar and olive oil and dinner's on. Add a glass of cold iced tea and I'm in heaven.

We also like the epicourious.com website. It's easy to maneuver and has lots of great food ideas, simple to complex.

Happy cooking!

www.tasteofhome.com
when I was cooking for 2 I loved the magazine cooking for 2. :) all the recipes in it are made for 2 people. (well some 4 so you can have leftovers) whenever I feel like I'm getting in a rut and want new ideas I subscribe for a year, depending on the magazine you get from then its about $12 a year for 6 magazines usually.

we try out the recipes that sound good to us and rate them on a scale of 1-10. anything lower than a 7 we never make a gain. 7-8 I will make again with some tweaking and a 9-10 goes into our family cookbook, I print up the recipes and put them in a binder in sheet protectors. we've built a nice family cookbook up of 10 rated recipes, and it is great as a gift that I give to family and friends when they get married. I just print up the recipes and make them their own binder--

one of our favorites

chop up broccoli, a couple of apples, a red onion, some crushed pecans and cheddar cheese into some cubes, mix with a vinaigrette dressing. so yum. we like to use raspberry vinaigrette.

I loooove messing with chicken. You can do so much with it. I love chicken salads... you can make some mayo-based or some vinegarette-based. Chili lime chicken is good... the beauty of the summertime, is you can grill the chicken and the oven won't heat up your house. My husband loves baked beans, I make baked beans a lot, too. Potato salad and macaroni/pasta salad is always a winner. You can even turn chicken salad from a side dish to a meal - make chicken salad subs!

Couscous salad: 10 minutes and yummy!!

1 c. couscous (box or bulk)
1 c. shredded or cubed chicken
1/2 c. feta (or other) cheese
1/4 c. chopped fresh herbs (like parsley, cilantro, basil, or oregano)
1 diced tomato
1/2 c. diced cucumber
1 1/2 Tbs. of lemon or lime juice

Cook and fluff the couscous. Add any other veggies you like and want, sprinkle with lemon juice. Toss & enjoy!
(I particularly like to add cilantro, corn, red onion, tomato, feta and black beans for a mexican themed dish. It's great with grilled veggies and meat too!)

Hi J., I live in AZ and didn't want to have the oven or stove on and I asked this back in April. Check it out on my profile, I got alot of good responses.

Oh, and I have tried many of them and am happy to say I don't have the oven or stove on anymore!

Good luck and happy cooking!

Immitation Crab Ceviche
2 large tomatos
1/2 a red onion
2 avacados
10 ounces of "crab" flake style
2-4 jalapeno or serrano peppers (seeds and ribs removed)
1-2 limes juiced
1TB olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Juice the limes and mix with the oil in a bowl
chop remaining ingredients and mix with the lime and oil
refrgerate all day stirring occasionally
Serve with corn tortillias and fresh "mexican" (queso fresco) style cheese