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Staying Cool While Cooking

Tips and Advice - Cooking from Scratch

Written by Maureen Wood

Summer is here and the last thing you feel like doing is sweltering in the kitchen. But you still want to provide home cooked meals for your family. Here are a few suggestions on cooking from scratch while staying relatively cool.

When the humidity and temperature are rising the best thing to do is get out of the kitchen:

Barbeque

If you can cook it in the house you most likely can cook it outside. Try and improvise. While the basic menu ideas need to change a bit, most things can be cooked on the barbie with just a few adjustments. I have to admit when it comes to the barbeque I pass it along to the husband. I may still plan the meal and get the product but I leave the mechanics up to him. He does a great corn of the cob on the barbeque. One of the best features of our barbeque, besides the grill, is the side element that came with it. It allows a pot of water to boil while the magic is happening on the grill. You can also buy attachments that go on the grill that allow for the sautéing of veggies.

Great Barbeque Ideas From Foodie Mamma

Toaster Oven

We have the same toaster oven that we were given when we were married thirteen years ago. We have never used it as a toaster but regularly use it as an mini oven all year round. It definitely gets used more in the summer; especially if it is raining and we can't use the barbeque. Anything you bake in the oven you can bake in the toaster oven, just on a smaller scale. It's great for chicken, pork chops, baked potato, bagels, pizza and more.

Great Toaster Oven Ideas From Foodie Mama

Slow Cooker

The best way to have your kitchen work for you is to have a slow cooker or crock pot. You load it up set the temperature then come back six to eight hours later to a house filled with aromatic food. While the counter is a little warm the room itself doesn't turn into a sauna. You can try almost any of your regular oven recipes in the slow cooker!

Great Slow Cooker Ideas from Food Mamma

Getting out of the kitchen is easier with a barbecue and reducing the amount of heat you are producing is easier with a toaster oven and slow cooker. Have a great summer!

10 Things to Do to Stay Cool in the Kitchen

Sometimes you can't get around being in the kitchen.

Have a huge glass of ice water close by and sip it regularly.
Wash your hair before cooking. You're always cooler with wet hair.
Cook in sections. Make the side dish, take a break from the kitchen. Make main dish, take a break.
Prepare the majority of the meal the night before when it's cooler. Or better yet. Cook it, and all you have to do it reheat it the next day.
Cook a bunch of meals at once and freeze them. Heat them in the microwave.
Put in a ceiling fan or counter fan to blow on you when you're at the counter.
Cook barefoot. The coolness of the linoleum on your feet will be refreshing.
Munch on some cucumber slices.
Have sandwiches as the main meal once a week.
Invite friends over for a salad pot luck.

M. E. Wood is the Cooking from Scratch Editor at Foodie Momma. She lives in Eastern Ontario, Canada. If you are going to find this eclectic reader and writer anywhere it is probably at her computer. For more information visit her Squidoo Who page.