Some great ideas, as always! We’re fans of rice paper wraps and salads with lightly-fried haloumi and lemon juice.

Another recent favourite is rolling our own sushi. It ain’t instant, but we don’t mind when there are leftovers to look forward to for lunch the next day!

I’m a big fan of Japanese-style cold soba salads with tangy dressings served with spinach, fried tofu and sesame seeds. I also make a great Teresa Cutter thing which is a nori sheet made into a cone and filled with sprouts and grated veggies with a miso/maple syrup dressing. It’s morphed from her recipe, because I can’t find it, but all of her dressings include miso and maple syrup ;)

hilarious, it’s freezing here (CA)!!! will bookmark this for july :)

Lovely ideas Kathryn.

It’s somewhat hard to get my head round the idea of food for hot weather while there’s still snow on the ground here but I think we often go for the cold japanese style noodles idea (like Zoe) as well as more conventional salads and sandwiches

Cindy: I’ve never made sushi, but that’s also a great idea.

Zoe: I like the cold soba salads idea, something I haven’t thought of this summer. But you’re right, you can make them super-flavoured.

Sophie: the temperature has plummeted here in Sydney. Today it’s about 15°C below what it was two weeks ago. So last night we had pasta bake for dinner – the most hearty and warming dish we could think of!

Thanks for these suggestions. I needed a bit of inspiration as the hot days kept coming here in Melbourne.

We love rice paper rolls too, but on those 45 degree days I’d remember I had forgotten to buy the rice paper wrappers and there was NO WAY I was getting into the car in that heat.

My family’s favourite in hot weather is a salad using rice stick noodles (because they don’t have to be boiled on the stove), eggs (cooked very quickly omelette-style), tofu (bought ready-marinated), bean sprouts, grated carrot, spring onions (and whatever other vegies I have on hand), salted peanuts and chopped chillies.

This is all tossed in a dressing of sweet chilli sauce, soy sauce, garlic, brown sugar, tomato sauce and oil.

Very satisfying, doesn’t heat up the kitchen and the kids love it too.

I love making Vietnamese spring rolls, big salads and vats of gazpacho. Gazpacho is one of the most refreshing things I can think of!

I’m still slogging through winter and looking forward to pulling out my own hot weather recipes!!

I went back through my photos (not yet posted) to see what I made. My favorite from last summer was a yellow squash and spring onion frittata (squash from my garden). This is eaten at room temperature, take 15 minutes to make and is great with salad. The affordability of the veggies allows me to make it with the more expensive but worthy eggs from local farmer.

Other things influenced from our garden:

Basil Pesto over green beans/potato/pasta
Tomatoes/Green beans/sliced Potatoes/olive oil/oregano at room temperature
Roasted tomatoes with fresh basil
Bruschetta
Summer chicken parmesan. Grilled chicken with roasted tomatoes
Caprese Salad

I’m getting so hungry now for tomatoes!

Angela – I’m a big fan of frittatas for an easy meal as well. I love the way you can just use up what’s in the fridge, no special shopping required. Your list of summer recipes is delicious.