Thai-Inspired Noodles with Sunflower Butter and Chicken

June is turning out to be hot, hot, HOT. Heat records are being set all across the US southwest. We reached 102F (39C) yesterday! Historically, Colorado doesn’t hit the 100s until July and August, so this summer is turning out to be quite unusual. I, for one, really enjoy the heat, especially after our long, cold mountain winters. But all I’m craving is cool, crunchy fresh veggies. I’ve been making these Thai-inspired noodles for years. Before my daughter was born, I made them with peanut butter, which is traditional but, because of her food allergies, I now use sunflower seed butter. Either is just fine. If you really don’t want to cook in the heat, you can use a Rotisserie chicken. If using fresh chicken breasts, I like to cook them early in the morning to prevent the kitchen from getting too hot (season well with salt and pepper and bake at 400F/200C for 25-30 minutes). Then I let them chill in the fridge all day. At dinnertime, it’s just a matter of boiling the noodles and whipping up the sauce which is made in the blender. No fuss, no sweat – just how a summer weeknight meal should be! 

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Summer Gazpacho with Feta and Oregano

I adore soup, and not only in the winter! I make so many different varieties of chilled summer soups – from Zucchini Vichyssoise, to carrot soup, to cucumber and yogurt soup – but the King of all summer soups has to be Gazpacho. And it’s my favourite, too – not only because the leftovers make a killer Bloody Mary. (Just add 2 ounces of vodka to a tall glass and pour in the soup. Then garnish with any of your favourite Bloody Mary accoutrements!)

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Quick and Easy Garden Pickles

This warm weather has me dreaming of the garden and all the easy summer meals we’ll have out there!  My grandmother’s recipe for quick garden pickles is still one of my family’s favourite side dishes. They’re so easy, they come together in just five minutes – perfect for those busy days and hot nights when you really don’t feel like cooking at all. We all have nights like that, don’t we?  Growing up, my grandparents had a large garden where we would play as children.  There they grew many different varieties of cucumbers – Armenian, gherkins, lemon cucumbers – which my grandmother would combine when making these pickles.  If you have several varieties in the garden, it’s fun to mix and match the colours and shapes, but if not, an English cucumber works perfectly well.   Continue reading “Quick and Easy Garden Pickles”