If you're anything like me--that is, air-conditioner-less--the meals you've been planning lately do not involve the oven and limit the stovetop.
This may be Bellevue in 50 years: Somerset, looking toward Clyde Hill. [Photo by Sander Wehkamp on Unsplash
We've been doing lots of grilling and slow-cooking and salad-ing, and fortunately the Market has just the right supplies for the heat wave.
- Meat and fish. You don't need fancy marinades. Some olive oil, salt and pepper and you're good to go. Although today I have a flank steak marinating in teriyaki sauce, olive oil, mustard, hot sauce, onions, and powdered ginger.
- Beans. Our summer swim team just had its swim banquet, and I realized that was the first time this summer I made homemade baked beans. Homemade baked beans are exactly one hundred times better than canned baked beans. Pick up your favorite bean variety at Alvarez Organic Farms. I've tried lots of recipes, and they're all basically tomato sauce, brown sugar, molasses, bacon, and onion. (Wherever a recipe calls for ketchup, ignore it. There's already plenty of sweetness from the brown sugar and molasses. Just use tomato sauce.)
Okay, our Market doesn't have a playground, but this was a good shot of the beans.
- And, of course, glorious fruits and vegetables. The combination hardly matters. I love greens with berries or chopped nectarine. There's corn and green beans. Fresh radishes. Tomatoes galore! If you don't eat them raw, the produce is usually grillable, laid straight on or in foil packets with olive oil, salt and pepper. A friend prepared onions and thinly-sliced potatoes that way, and it was delish.
[Photo by Hari Nandakumar on Unsplash
Thursday's forecasted high is 88F. Don't forget your hat and sunscreen when you come by the Market. And, if the thought of any sort of cooking is just too much, there are always our lovely food trucks and pizza and tamales and ice cream and slushies!
Stay cool, Bellevue.
