I love watermelon salad! Feta, thinly sliced onions, fresh basil leaves and sometimes I put quinoa in it. So refreshing!

I make taco salads, I made a soup this week, silly me, but I really had a craving for loaded potato soup. No more soups the rest of the summer.......we've had the summer from hell this year. Never this hot for this long of a stretch.

Jasdip, we’ve also had a, extremely hot summer. And oddly enough, I also have been craving soups!

We have central A/C and keep the house cool. Chili from our freezer tonight for supper. But we do love the local summer produce and we're growing tomatoes and herbs. Had tomato sandwiches and corn on the cob last night for supper.

We don't have the humidity you guys have, but it has been hot! DH usually grills something while I do a vege/salad and maybe a tater in the air fryer or one of those 90 second flavored rice packets.

I don't do well in the heat!

A rotisserie chicken. Slice off sandwich slices then shred the rest for chicken salad. We also like pasta salad with tuna added for protein.

For sticky and hot I like really cold but not sweet, spicy or salty. Cucumber soup. Not too sugary canteloupe. Cottage cheese. Chilled avocado (straight). Chilled tomato. Cold chicken. Cold eggs. Iceberg. really cold. Spinach. I might roll up any of the above in a nice iceberg leaf.

I try not to think about the heat too much, just part of life and the AC runs all the time so inside it can be cold. I love the seasonal tomatoes and right now I'm loving those daily and also fresh blueberries, lots of produce but I still often eat soup for lunch every day, that I keep in the freezer.

It's not so much about what I eat but I don't heat the oven up for long periods of time to cook slow braises or bake. Lots of grilling right now and ice cream daily.

What appeals to me — cold artichoke soup; curried (Indian flavors) chicken salad on very thin bread like a flour burrito wrapper, as a roll-up or inside a leaf of Boston lettuce. Or some raita — NYT International Cookbook — yogurt, grated cucumber, cumin, cayenne; served cold. Iced tea, naturally infused.

Hot and muggy days here. The wild turkeys are panting. I put a bit of sunflower seed out and give them lots of fresh cool water. I tilt the container so that the poults can drink. Ditto for the small condo tails and opossums. He bird baths are kept fresh and full.

I hope every pet cat and dog (horse, donkey, pig, cow, sheep) out there are getting cool shade and water.

Once parched summer I saw a small heron in my back yard. I knew it was hot and thirsty. I grabbed a large Pyrex pie plate and set it out for him, filled with cool well water. Before I could get back to my air conditioned kitchen window, he was standing in the pie an of cool water. (I’d placed in in the shade.) for about ten to twenty minutes, the bird continued to stand in the water. I got some good photos. Later, he hung around the yard and gardens, taking the liberty to swallow a good sized garter snake from my perennial bed. Beautiful green heron.

Taco salad here too - I think I could eat that every day!

I make a lot of green salads, roast chicken, boiled eggs, and make chef's salads.

I don’t have a/c which generally isn’t an issue in this climate. I might consider a heat exchanger if I can budget it which lowers humidity and cools in summer. When I lived in NJ I liked to have a/c where I slept at the least. But I generally prefer to let my body adapt to the temperature or else I would never go outside.

My sister has the most gorgeous plot of romaine in her garden. I picked a few heads and have been having salads with whatever other veggies I have on hand and shaved pepato cheese from a recent trip to the big city.

I also made a white bean salad with some giant Greek beans. And then replicated it with more modest locally available Lima beans. I cooked the beans with cardamom and dehydrated lemons. And made the salad with herbs, lemon, olive oil, kalamatas, radishes, onion, carrots.

I am going to a nearby friend’s to pick some blackberries tomorrow. It is a bumper year. She has exquisite gardens. Each individual blackberry stem is tied up. I was thinking a blackberry granita. But maybe a cold berry soup....

Or a cold cucumber soup would be nice.

Meanwhile icy cold watermelon...

I am temporarily resisting ice cream. If I am good I keep it as something I eat when out. Cranberry juice popsicles are chilly and not too sweet.

Raita is a great idea!

It will be 107F here Saturday. I doubt we'll be cooking out this weekend. There's a reason why this area was pretty sparsely settled before A/C. I think I might make a pasta salad for dinner Sunday. I set out a taco bar last night which was perfect because the only thing I had to make from scratch was ground beef taco filling. That way, I didn't heat up the kitchen.

In the summer we eat BLTs at least 2 or 3 times a week to use some of the garden tomatoes. I usually oven cook a couple pounds of bacon at a time in the morning when it is cool, stick it in the fridge, and heat it up in the microwave when we have BLTs.

Since you bake your own bread, this is a good time to make sandwiches. I have been making them with whole wheat bread that I make using wheat berries that I grind into flour plus turkey breast that Kevin smoked on the BGE. I've also been making my own mayonnaise and mustard (Brad Leone recipe) and sauerkraut (also Brad Leone recipe). I think you already make sauerkraut and mustard as well.

We smoked some sausage but I do not make sandwiches with that, but hot dogs are a good idea and a good way to use sauerkraut.

I need to make some more kimchee while I'm at it, but I've noticed that I eat more sauerkraut, although I generally do not eat sauerkraut by itself the way I do kimchee.

I have a big bowl of dough in my fridge. I was planning on baking today or tomorrow. But this morning I was looking at my crispy dry landscape and reconsidering. I bake outside in a wood fired oven. I hate to waste all that flour but it is really really dry. I might water the ground in the area of the oven and give it a try.

I was craving a pb sandwich. I had peanut butter on toasted tortillas for lunch followed by watermelon and a few frozen berries today. Definitely need to bake.

Another fan here of watermelon and feta. Actually any melon and feta. I just bought a very large block of French feta to enjoy.

I make this no-cook pasta sauce when we have our tomato crop.

Fresh Summer Tomato Sauce

2 large ripe tomatoes, peeled and seeded
4 T. olive oil
1/4 cup chopped basil leaves
1/4 cup chopped scallions
1 T. chopped fresh oregano
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. kosher salt, or to taste
Fresh ground pepper, to taste
Fresh grated Parmesan, for garnish

Dice tomato pulp and combine with 1 T. of the olive oil. Add remaining ingredients, except Parmesan, and toss to blend. I f using same day, cover and let sit until serving time. If not using the same day, cover and refrigerate. Bring to room temp before using. To serve, taste for seasoning and add remaining 3 T. olive oil. Toss with hot, warm or cold pasta and sprinkle with Parmesan.

Salads...lots and lots of salads...mostly with vinegar or lemon juice based dressings and lots of greens. I use canned garbanzo beans for protein, sometimes just rinsed and sometimes crushed and mixed with other ingredients. I love Trader Joe's Cold Brew Ice Pops, too. I could live on those, but they haven't been in stock for about three weeks at my store. We don't use A/C, so the stove doesn't get turned on when the temperature goes over 80º F.

I cooked up a big ole pork roast last night before the heat hit and got a costco chicken today, so we'll figure out some non-cook meals for the next few days.

I usually don't do take out, but with this heat wave going on until at least next Wednesday, we may re-consider!

Freezing chunks of watermelon instead of filling the fridge is my option.

Look up gado gado (recipetineats has a good recipe). It's an Indonesian salad with peanut sauce and you can adapt it to what you like.