Summer Food For One

Cooking for One: Stay cool all summer with salads

Marlene Parrish suggests that, “Pulling together meals couldn’t be easier for the solo cook in the warm months. While it’s simmertime in the kitchen for many families, you can get away with summertime ease with only yourself to please. Learn to concoct six basic salads, throw in a loaf of bread, an occasional roasted chicken and a couple of swift desserts and you won’t have to heat up the kitchen until Labor Day.”

Cooking for One: Stay cool all summer with salads

Summer Food Safety

Health and Age kindly inform us that, “From large family reunions to supper for one at a bandstand in the park, the fair weather of summer encourages outdoor dining. Unfortunately, warm weather also encourages ‘food poisoning’, more accurately described as foodborne illness.” Summer Food Safety.

“Several precautions should be taken when making a bento. The most important thing is to avoid food poisoning, especially in summer.”

Speed up dinner preparation

You probably want to do this at any time, but it provides even more benefits in summer, because the less time you spend in the kitchen, the less hot you and it become. Chose meals that require little or no cooking, or ones that have shorter cooking times, instead of stews that require long simmering. Cook several portions ahead, so you only cook - and create heat - once. (Warming up in the microwave will not have quite as much effect.)

Here too are 10 Ways to Speed Up Dinner-Prep Times (Via: Lifehacker)

Slashfood point to an article in the New York Times food section, aimed at cooking dinner quickly. There are many more good tips to be picked up from this mom who makes meal plans and has “forsaken the gourmet approach to most dishes and does the basic, pared-down version of each dish.”

6 Best Summer Foods for Weight Loss

WebMD list chilled soups, watermelon, grilled veggies, salads, no-calorie beverages and fruit-based deserts, all highly suitable for one.

6 Best Summer Foods for Weight Loss

The Greek Taste of Summer Vegetables

Eggplant, zucchini, peppers, summer squash, green beans, leafy greens… and the list goes on. Nowhere is the bounty of the summer harvest celebrated with more gusto than in Greece.

The Greek Taste of Summer Vegetables

Listed under Easy Summer Food, is Christine’s Happy Hour for One: Toasted Ciabatta Pizzas with olives and basil.

Bill Hilbrich offers Solo Roast Beef Salad, topped with grated cheese. He says, “This meal for one is a great way to use left over roast beef to make a cool salad on a hot day. Use any cheese. Cooking is a Creative Sport.”

More Cool Summer Food Recipes